Ghosts
by Elegies for Shiva
Summary: In love and loss, it often comes back to family, and Team 7 had always been fated, hadn't they? Deny it as she may, Sakura finds her heart strung to them with an uncanny reverence and the weight of their ghosts. Sakura-centric. Heavy, heavy angst. Slow burn Sasusaku. Canon pairings. Lots of friendship feels. Eventual (consensual) lemon.
1. Crowning (Part One)

**A/N:** Sasuke and Sakura's story. It's canon-compliant, but the writing is so drastically darker than canon writing that it might as well be AU. I meant for it to be a lighter piece but turns out I get off on my characters suffering instead so…

Please review or comment if you can. Criticisms especially welcomed, I'm a pretty new writer and I'm very interested in honing the craft.

 **Trigger Warnings:** Lots and lots of triggers, read this baby if you love some cathartic dysphoria. Rape. Molestation. Stalking. Murder. Body dismemberment. Self Mutilation. Drug Abuse. Panic Attacks. Suicide attempts. Suicide success. Major PTSD (this beginnings of this fic pretty much rides on it.) I could go on. This series is angst central.

 **© All characters, setting, and material concepts created by Masashi Kishimoto. I did not write Naruto. This is a fan made piece solely created for entertainment purposes.**

* * *

Sakura lost her innocence in a way no person ever should, but in a way that too many kunoichi did all the same.

It was after the remnants of Team 7 had tried to retrieve Sasuke and yet again failed. His painstaking laugh and attempts on their lives still came to her as nightly visions, disturbing her sleep.

"Forehead, are you sure you're okay?" Ino had asked. And Sakura insisted she was.

"I can tell when you're lying, kid, so quit bull shitting me," Tsunade told her between swigs of a blue bottle. "I'm going to give you something easy, just to keep your mind off of things. I think you could use it." Sakura didn't protest.

And when she was sent on a mission that should have been child's play with Neji, Shino, and Ino, she shouldn't have found herself in this predicament: chakra depleted from the sloppy use of poorly timed punches and jutsus, body marred with open wounds that she didn't trust her muddled head to heal with necessary precision. Probably suffering from a low grade poisoning too.

But all she felt was the weight of Shikamaru's request, Kakashi's contrition, Naruto's burden. And all she saw was Sasuke. SasukeSasukeSasuke—his expression a coalescence of suffering and amusement, the blue heat of his fingertips surging towards her skull.

She saw his red eyes peering down as she lied on that cold floor. His Sharingan was blazing, black stars spiraling. They belittle her, tell her that she's worthless— _Who the hell are you going to save? You can't even save yourself._ Sakura didn't want to believe them but his cool indifference towards her was right all along and there was nothing that could refute it now. She was on the wooden floorboards of a motel and she was going to die by two low ranking, defected shinobi.

"She's injured and chakra depleted," one of the shinobi said, his long auburn hair draped across his face like a curtain made of dried blood. "This is over."

The other shinobi pinned her with a grin so wide it mocked every notion that sanity ever existed. "Finally!" he said while he wiped the sweat off his brow, smearing her blood and debris on his face. "Let's have some fun with her, eh Rishu?"

Sakura felt her head throb and suddenly her stomach churned with something other than pain. The red haired shinobi declined with a casual annoyance. "You're disgusting." He turned away. "Don't take too long, I doubt she came alone. Hanja might need reinforcements."

"Pfft. Hanja's a powerhouse, he'll be fine."

"Don't take long," he repeated.

And then she was alone with a man with short brown hair, deep purple eyes, and a maniacal grin. She panted hard, her body stiff, and her vision hazed. Her panicked pulse drummed out all other noise, demanding for her to _move_.

But she couldn't. She was petrified from the way his eyes roamed over her, how his tongue peeked out to lick his lips.

He walked towards her with slow strides, a delirious sort of amusement on his face. Sakura could see the expression bare, his head blurring against the white wall, the white ceiling, and the white-hot pain.

"You look like someone I used to know," he said aloud, studying her with a wistful smile. "Not your hair, _definitely_ not your hair," he rectifies, as if the idea of him knowing another person with pink hair was the most preposterous possible facet of their interaction. "But you have her face..."

He leaned over her then, and she inhaled sharp, lungs decaying inside her ribs. He cupped her cheek, and she flinched from the cold, callous feel of his thumb tracing over the fullness of her cheek.

"Even your eyes kind of look like hers." His voice was low, suspiciously soft. His lips pulled back over slightly yellowed teeth, and his glossy eyes roamed over her. She didn't like it—felt terribly naked.

"You're so beautiful," he said, a sweet confession, and Sakura made a noise—the beginnings of a sob. "She was too." His hand traveled lower, smearing a path of red down her neck. "Want to know a secret?" He asked, velvet lilac eyes distantly tracing the path along her throat. The pads of his fingers were both wet and grainy. Sakura wondered if he was going to strangle her.

"Someone told me once that the dead can only speak if you bother to listen. There's a switch to turn it off, if you try hard enough." He traced his fingers along her collar bone, his hands coming to rest on her small shoulders. "But I don't know how to stop. I don't think I even want to. She's everywhere. Speaking to me."

He grabbed hold of the zipper of Sakura's top.

"And today, it's through you."

He started to tug it down.

Something inside Sakura snapped, and with a renewed strength, she grabbed a kunai within reach. She desperately tried to stave him off, swerving the weapon at his arm and then his legs, and surprised them both when she actually managed to lodge the better half of the blade into his thigh.

A savage cry tore from his throat and his fist pounded her head onto the floor—reflexively at first, but then he does it again and again, until the pain doesn't even register anymore and she just heard the loud _thund... thund... thund._

"Damn bitch!" He growled, removing the kunai with a yelp. Sakura had almost wanted to laugh watching the motion. She was going to die by a man who didn't even know you were supposed to wait for a medic to pull out a He chucked the weapon across the room before wrenching both of her wrists towards him. There was a stark _snap_ , and suddenly she was screaming louder than she ever thought she could.

He let out a boisterous laugh, "Well shit," his voice was muffled by the billows of pain stretching through her body. "Your face sure doesn't look like hers now!" Something in his voice bordered relief, his howling echoing through the room. "Too bad," he said. "It was so pretty. How am I going to enjoy this now?"

She winced as she felt cold steel slipping under her clothes, followed by the sound of ripping. Mortified, she felt a sudden chill over the expanse of her stomach and breasts as he cut away at her clothes. Without fault, he proceeded to grope her body.

Sakura felt her throat closing up, making horror driven sounds in protest. Her aching body was coming alive in a set of rapid convulsions, begging to reverberate to another place. His breath was hot and his tongue was slimy as he pressed searing kisses onto her neck. Everything was red.

Sakura tried to pretend she wasn't there, staring up at a chip in the unending white ceiling. She thought of how good it once felt to be cradled in her okaasan's arms. "My sweet, sweet child," kaasan would say, during the times Sakura felt anything but. The smell of autumn wafted through their pale-white window. Her dad would mock her cousins in a pathetic attempt to make her feel like her chosen shinobi lifestyle was a good one.

"She didn't make it very far. Probably died around your age," his voice was a crisp cut into her, his hands a slow burn as they roughly wandered her body. She felt them everywhere and she was trembling so hard then, she wondered why she wasn't able to shake them off. "She was my first love, you know...I always wondered what she would have felt like. Maybe you can show me?"

She cried out when she felt his hands hook beneath the bands of her shorts and skirt. She pathetically tried to kick him off. "Don't!"

As if on cue, he rammed his fist into her face again, her head smacking against the floor and blacking her vision for some of the longest seconds in her life.

"Gods, you think you'd learn!" He reprimanded, before cutting away the remnants of her bottoms too. Sakura began to sob.

Her eyes clenched shut, and she could hear him fumble with his own clothing before something both rigid and fleshy pressed into a part of her that she hardly even knew existed. A cry turned to a yelp as he tried to push himself inside of her with a grunt. There was a tight, burning sensation, and then—to her relief—it stopped.

She was so dry that the nukenin had to coat his himself with his own saliva after the failed attempt. She was finally talking then, whimpering nonsense. She wasn't exactly sure what was coming out of her mouth, just hoping one of her words would make him stop.

Maybe he had become mute in that moment, because he didn't seem to be responding. Just stared down between her legs while drooling globs of spit onto his hand. Then he wrapped his fingers around himself and pumped, shuffling closer. Sakura could hear a mantra inside, something distant, a voice beyond hers whispering, _No no no no no._

Suddenly, Sakura felt the start of the burning sensation again. And then it amplifies tenfold and Sakura is _screaming_. She didn't mean to, but it fucking **hurts** _._ She was tense and it was dry, and then he was thrusting deep inside of her like none of it even mattered—using her body as if she didn't live inside of it.

He was urged by her shrieks, thrusting faster and harder. _"Fuck!"_ he cried. "You're so tight!" She gasped with each painful rut, the scorching sensation spiraling through her core and cutting into every crevice of her immobilized body.

"P-Please! I'll d-do... anything!" Sakura stuttered through wet sobs, her voice hoarse and raw. She couldn't even register how pathetic she sounded, the burning was _so_ bad. "Just please sto-"

He smashed his fist into her head again, "Shut up!" He roared. He shifted his hips and pounded into her in a frenzy then, as if to punish her for even entertaining the idea.

Sakura couldn't stop crying, his every movement torching through her nerves, like acid was eating her flesh from the inside. She wants to disappear. She _needs_ to disappear.

He was moaning, screeching in pleasure, and every noise left her ears bleeding. "Fuck! So _good_ , so fucking…" She'd never forget this. She'd never, it was going to follow her after he kills her. It was going to—

Sakura felt him suddenly go still. There was a fixed moment of just his hot breath fanning down, the pain throbbing between her legs, and her sobs wracking her body. Then he pulled out of her.

She dared to open her eyes, and found him mechanically grab the kunai he had used to cut her clothes with. Sakura felt painful palpitations and it made it hard for her to focus but the moment was too crucial not to.

He slowly stood to his full length then, and took a few steps backwards. His eyes were concentrated on her still—her face this time. But his gaze was... _sad?_

In both horror and relief, she sobbed as he slit his own throat.

The cut is neat but short and his eyes were wide with shock as the kunai just knicks his jugular, as if jolted by a newfound consciousness of pain. His knees banged onto the floor, kunai slipping out of his hold, meeting the ground with a _Clang!_

His blood spewed out in torrents and it amplified Sakura's nausea tenfold. He fell backwards, thrashing, a gargling sound escaping as he tried to grasp at his own neck. The blood pooled beneath him, a _Sharingan_ crimson seeping into the wood and creeping towards her feet. She used what little energy she had to shift her trembling legs closer to her, away from the wreckage of red.

Neji bursts through the door then. And not a moment later his feet were glued in position. His Byakugan swam with an unreserved disturbance as his eyes drank in his teammate—naked and bloody—as well as the dying man on the floor, clutching at his throat as it spurted a fountain, his pants pulled down just enough to reveal a slightly bloody and rapidly softening phallus.

They both watched her perpetrator flail, solid minutes passing before he gasped out his last breath, body slumping rigid.

It was only then that the window opened, a forceful snap of the locks breaking before Ino crawled through. She was a deathly pale, left shoulder adorning splatters of blood.

She said nothing, looked at neither Neji nor the dead man on the floor, only at Sakura. She wasted no time, and her lack of confusion distantly confirmed to Sakura that she was the one who killed her attacker.

Then Sakura was being wrapped in a thin bedsheet with the utmost care. She was silent except for restrained gasps between uneven breaths; her sobs having quieted to whimpers since Neji's arrival. She looked around with unfocused eyes, trying to forget the pain swallowing her whole because they're on a mission and some part of her still knew that.

Ino cupped her wet cheek and looked at her sternly, forcing her to meet her gaze. "Sakura," her voice was grim.

And Sakura still couldn't feel her face but she saw a vibrant glowing in her peripheral and distantly recognizes she was being healed.

"You're going to be okay. Do you understand?"

Sakura trembled more than she nodded.

"Good. We completed the mission and we're going back to Konoha." Ino wasn't the assigned leader to be calling those kinds of shots, but that didn't make a difference right now. "We're going to fix you up a bit and get Shino. Then we're going to need to run back to Konoha. Can you do that for me?"

Sakura meekly nodded.

Neji had returned to his usual aloof composure by then. He huffed. "We weren't supposed to get rid of all of them, we needed at least one alive."

Ino shot Neji the darkest sneer anyone probably had the courage to wield in the face of the Hyuga. "It doesn't matter, they're all dead now and there's nothing we can do about it. So let's just _fucking_ go."

And Neji didn't have a response, so they did exactly that. Shino, as predicted, said nothing to seeing Sakura clad in nothing but a torn piece of bed sheet and spare shorts Ino had. Nor did he comment on the dullness in her eyes.

* * *

The team debriefed the mission to one of Tsunade's subordinates and Sakura attended the required check in at the hospital, if only to promptly have the small dose of poison removed. She headed straight to her house after, slipping in through her window for discretion, only to find herself surging with relief when she realized no one was home.

Then she ran to the bathroom and violently retched.

Sakura spent hours in the shower, scorching her skin with hot water and scrubbing it raw. She tried to scrub the feeling of his tongue on her neck off and his hands on her breasts. She tried to scrub off Sasuke's starry eyes cackling at her misfortune. She tried to scrub off the onus of Naruto's conviction. She tried to scrub off her fixed post as the dead weight of what once was Team 7.

She sobbed, her knees crashed onto the porcelain and she screamed.

Then she scrubbed again.

Neji never gave her any particular attention before, but he avoided her for weeks after that. When she did see him, she would notice him eye her with an uncharacteristic sympathy. Then she started to avoid him too.

She didn't say a word in defense or question when she was told she would be barred from missions for the next month. Despite the suspension, Tsunade didn't treat her differently. But there was a heavy guilt in her eyes that Sakura wanted no part of.

Naruto pestered her incessantly. _You've been acting really weird Sakura-chan. Why isn't Baa-chan letting you come on my mission with me? You've been saying you're busy every day this week, Sakura-chan, c'mon, if something's wrong, just tell me so we can fix it already!_

Eventually, she snapped, "Just leave me the fuck alone, Naruto! You wouldn't get it and there's nothing you can do! So just fucking drop it!"

Naruto did finally stop asking after that. But not before shattering her with a single retort: "You're starting to sound like Sasuke."

* * *

When Ino dragged her into her room a week after the incident, Sakura had wanted to protest but couldn't find the courage to. "Forehead, I need to talk to you about something."

"I don't want to talk," Sakura's response was automated, but the defeat in her tone conveyed she meant it. Still, she sat down on the lavender sheets of Ino's bed when she was pulled into the privacy of her room.

Ino had scowled. "Well, _I_ do." Sakura had met her friend's fiery look with a bold knit of her brows and a grimace of her lips. But she felt her resolve shake when Ino's expression thread into the deepest melancholy. Sakura wondered if Ino had to forcefully strip away her anger or if the sight of her these days was just that dismal.

"Sakura, what happened to you..." Ino tensed, looked away, lips twisting into a sure sign of a resonating distraught. Sakura could see her searching for the words amidst the miasma.

Then Ino's eyes slid shut, nose crinkling, hands firmly fisting the sheets. Her head bowed, like she was offering it to a guillotine while hiding her chagrin behind her hair.

It was too heavy for Sakura, and part of her wanted to dart out the room. But a much more desperate part wanted to reach out and hold her.

"Sakura, I was so mad," Ino finally spoke. "That shouldn't have happened. Not on my watch." She let out a strangled sound, then paced out a few breaths. "I was so damn mad. When I was in his body, I knew how risky it was. If Shikamaru knew about it, he would have told me a million better ways to go about it. But Sakura, I was in his head—I **felt** it, and...I _had_ to slit that piece of shit's throat." She seethed through grit teeth. "I knew it would have killed me too if I didn't get back quick enough, but I **had** to kill him." Ino said, cheeks burning, like she'd been freshly spaded with the experience.

Sakura could feel her heart twisting, pounding like an erratic war drum. She traced Ino's teeth, digging into her bottom lip. It didn't quite bleed, but Sakura could see a thin layer start to peel between a chapped crack.

"And I was mad because I _knew_ , Sakura, I knew...because..." Then Ino's voice cracked,"because it happened to me too."

Sakura felt a wet line slip down her cheek, her head swimming. She surprised herself with the raspy texture of her own voice. "...What?" _Gods. Ino._ There's was a lapse, where she shuddered, swallowed hard, trying to reclaim her voice. "...When?"

Ino breath hitches, "Like…a m-month ago." She cried openly. "In Ame. I th-thought I was going to die." She wheezed. "Sometimes I still wished I had."

Sakura eyes slipped shut, if only to acknowledge the wound for what it was. This was not an experience meant to be shared. Yet, here they were. And Ino just cried harder.

"He-he wasn't my first like—I know...with you, I know it...but..."

"Ino..." Sakura's voice is so small, whining. "Oh, Ino, no…"

"Sakura, I wouldn't wish that on anyone," Ino said. "And of all the people I know, you are the last-I-I would have never, never wanted that to happen to you. But it did, and it's all m-my fault." Sakura's shaking her head in a vehement objection. But Ino doesn't let her speak. "I knew!" She whimpered, with eyes so blue and sad, perfectly synchronized with the regret in her voice. "I knew you were messed up after everything with Sasuke, and I should've been there! I knew what could've happened! I should've protected you!"

"Oh, _Ino_."

And Sakura doesn't know who grabbed who first, but then their arms are tight around one another, like they were trying to suffocate the grief with the strength of their embrace. Ino spoke, her voice muffled by the shoulder she gasped into, "I'm so sorry, Sakura. I'm sorry for everything. Please!" Her voice cracks, loud and shrill on Sakura's aching ears. "Please forgive me."

Sakura pulled back, her brows furrowed and her smile shaking. She cupped Ino's moist cheek with her hand, and her smile molded into something more firm.

Her best friend had never been as beautiful as she was in that moment.

Sakura kissed Ino's mouth, her cheek, her forehead, and pulled her back into that tenuous embrace. "Always Ino. We're going to get through this," she promised. "We're going to do it together."

Their tops were coated with their tears, and the sensation was painful and cleansing at once. Ino adjusted her arms, held Sakura more securely. They were both smiling now, a crippled and worn smile, but a smile nonetheless.

"Okay."


	2. The Lacquered Gnat

Ichiraku's looks both familiar and foreign to Sasuke. All of Konoha did. Everything is the same but ... _new._

The paint on buildings is brighter, the structures more modern. There is a lot of reasons why Sasuke had been hesitant to call Konoha his home for what was now the longer part of his life. But this isn't a reason he anticipated. Even Naruto has changed, hair shorter, shoulders broader. His smile as he conversed with the ramen shop owner more gentle. Still, this new Konoha wasn't necessarily _alien_. It was more like things have just been revamped. Right?

So then where the hell is Sakura?

"Teme!" Naruto's voice is deeper, more rough than he remembers.

"Dobe," Sasuke acknowledges with a nod of his head, and almost grimaces at the montone grain of his voice, dulled with his persistent silence over the years. He takes a seat beside his old teammate on the small wooden stool and a hot bowl of ramen is placed in front of him before he even orders.

"Don't worry, it's on me," Naruto explains with a grin. "It's so good to see you! I like the hair _—_ all dark and mysterious. Bet girls love it too." He nudges Sasuke suggestively, and Sasuke tries not to cringe. Whether it be at the words themselves or the truth they hold, he's not sure yet. "You've no idea how excited I was when I got that letter from your hawk!"

"Where's Sakura?" Sasuke asks, utterly bewildered by her absence. She's never late.

"Oh, she's at the hospital," Naruto winds a mouthful of noodles around his chopsticks, "She couldn't make it."

Something wound its way around Sasuke's heart, clenching the organ painfully and biting in with every beat. He makes an effort to unclench his teeth to speak. "What do you mean she's at the hospital? It's 7:30." The corner of his mouth twitches into a deep frown. "Didn't you tell her I would be here?"

Naruto swallows a bite of noodles with a wet slurp. "Well, yeah, but it's not like she can just leave whenever she wants to. She's an important medic, teme. She's one of the heads of the hospital now."

"It's _Sakura_ ," he says with a snort. "I sent that hawk two weeks ago, she should've been able to have someone cover for her."

"Listen, she'll see you next time. Don't get your panties all in a bunch." Naruto stuffs his face with ramen, then proceeds to talk while he chews. "So how were your travels?" He swallows with a loud gulp. "Kaka-sensei never gave me all the details. Said some bull crap about 'confidentiality', as if I'm not about to be Hokage soon." Naruto rolls his eyes at the mere memory.

But Sasuke wasn't really paying attention, preoccupied with the uncoiling inside of him. This isn't like her, she'd want to see him. It's Sakura for gods sake. Sure, it's been a couple of years, but she's still team 7. She should be here, welcoming him home. Maybe she is sick. Maybe something happened. But now Naruto is babbling again and Sasuke knows he's supposed to be put-together by now, so he tries to at least play the part.

"I've just been helping around. Mostly in Kumo." He takes his first bite of ramen, and his stomach protests as he swallows. "Congratulations on your marriage, by the way." Sasuke tries not to think of Sakura again.

"Yeah, what the hell! Why weren't you there, eh teme?" Naruto pokes his chopsticks into Sasuke's arm accusingly then. "What kind of guy doesn't even attend his own best friend's wedding?"

"I was busy." Sasuke pushes his arm away not-too-gently. "I'll go to the second one when she realizes what a mistake she's made marrying a dumbass like you."

"Pfft." Naruto slurps more ramen into his mouth. "Please! Hinata's crazy in love with me! I'll have you know we have a kid on the way!" Sasuke coughs, choking on the noodles sliding down his dry gullet.

"What!?" The shop owner's ears perk up. "That's wonderful! Congratulations, Naruto!"

Naruto smile is so bright he can light the whole town. "Haha thanks! I'm really excited!"

"That's horrifying." Sasuke says and swallows water, his brain irreparably rattled at this news. Naruto? Having a kid? He's not sure how he feels, or how to react and his head wires itself to the cynical default. "I hope it takes after her more than it does you."

Naruto's face softens then, and a gentle smile crawls over. "Me too."

And Sasuke thinks he has never been more jealous of a smile in his life.

* * *

Two days later, Sasuke arrives at training grounds 6 with his usual long blade in tow. He is surprised to see Naruto already stretching in the center of the mossy field. It's expected for Naruto to show up a bit early for his ramen, but he's never been quite as enthusiastic as Sasuke when it came to training.

"Oh, hey teme," Naruto calls, reaching past the length of his leg. "It's just gonna be us today. Sakura-chan said she'd be caught up in the hospital again."

Sasuke makes an effort to keep himself from scowling. "Whatever," he bites out, harsher than intended.

"I was kinda looking forward to watching her kick your ass, but guess I'm just gonna have to do it for her!" He chirps, jubilant as ever.

Sasuke scoffs, but doesn't bother to give a retort, preoccupied with Sakura's absence yet again.

"Let's keep it to taijutsu this time. Kaka-sensei yelled at me last time I wrecked a training ground."

Sasuke contemplates this for a moment. He certainly was looking forward to holding the raw power of a chidori in his palm, but there was still something sweetly relieving about slamming his fist into a jaw. Especially the dobe's. Sasuke nods in agreement, the chill of the afternoon creeping along his skin. "It'll probably keep you out of the hospital," He says, tactfully abstaining from sneering a bitter comment about Sakura already having her hands full. He cracks his neck with a sharp tilt of his chin, then his knuckles with a biting pressure. It's relieving, despite what the stark sounds suggest. But not relieving enough.

"Yeah, it won't keep you out though!" Naruto taunts, cerulean eyes gleaming. He faces Sasuke's grim frown with bent knees and a confident smile. "You ready?"

Sasuke answers with a forward lunge.

* * *

A week later, Sasuke suggests another attempt for the former teammates to commemorate his homecoming and the three of them agree to meet up at a civilian bar for a few drinks at night. Naruto proposes the location and Sasuke only agrees to it because he is sure Sakura won't get stuck in the hospital so late.

Sasuke is the first to arrive, and he isn't sure if he is pleased or not at this realization. Without waiting for the other two, he orders a drink that's much too strong for this occasion. He compensates by taking measured a single measured sip, and revels in the slight burn of his throat as he swallows.

"Teme!" Naruto arrives a couple minutes later, taking a seat right by Sasuke. "Man, you wouldn't believe the shit pregnant women go through, Sasuke. She's not even that far in and she's throwing up like crazy today. I'm so glad I have a dick." Naruto makes a gesture to the bartender eyeing him then. "Oi! I'll have whatever he's having."

Sasuke quirks an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be helping her then?"

Naruto shrugs. "I told her that but she kept saying she's fine. You know how Hinata-chan is. I don't think she'd let me cancel on you for her, she's too kind for her own good." Naruto's face is as warm as honey.

"Sakura's not here," Sasuke's voice is heavy, but this time it's not with irritation. He takes another calculating sip of his beer.

"What? Am I not good enough for you?" Naruto asks, an unsatisfied frown framing his face.

Sasuke frowns. "She's never late." Sasuke takes a full gulp then to soothe his nerves, and he's displeased to find it numbing his senses but not his thoughts.

"Don't worry, she'll come. She's probably just stuck at the hospital. She's always working all kinds of crazy hours." A tall glass is placed before Naruto then, and he's too eager to take a fast gulp. He nearly chokes, his hand smacking against his mouth as he swallows before coughing. The bartender gives him a humored look, but Naruto's attention is focused solely on Sasuke. " _Damn,_ teme! Fuck!" he rasps. "What is this? Vodka?"

Sasuke begins to feel a warming sensation in his body and he's urged on by the lightness of it, because thoughts of Sakura are making him feel so damn heavy. He takes another gulp and Naruto watches him incredulously. "Teme, you're not an alcoholic, are you?"

Sasuke grunts. "No, you idiot."

"Good, cause baa-chan already got that title, and I don't know if I could handle two of you."

It was then that Sasuke's dull senses alerted him to a presence approaching them. A woman with short black hair invites herself onto a seat next to him and his frown grew impossibly deeper. He runs his eyes over her form, sizing her up. Her clothes are skimpy but Sasuke is not jarred by flesh no more than open wounds. He's seen too much of both to be phased.

"Well, if it isn't Naruto Uzumaki and the great Sasuke Uchiha." Her grin is sincere but her lips are too thin and her hair is too dark for her to have any appeal to him. "You two wouldn't mind if me and a few girls chatted for a bit, would you? We've heard all sorts of stories about the shinobi war, but I'm sure it's nothing compared to hearing it from war heros themselves. Think maybe you could show us some moves?"

Naruto is already frowning too. "Uh, actu-"

"Get lost," Sasuke cuts him off, abrasively dismissing their uninvited guest.

She chuckles, the boldness of her laugh grating at Sasuke's ears. "Don't worry, I wasn't trying to tempt your friend into being unfaithful. The whole village knows about Hinata." She smiles then, and winks at him. "I was actually kind of more interested in you, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke- _kun_ she said. But her eyes aren't green and her hair isn't pink and Sasuke thinks he's actually going to be sick now.

His growl is demonic and it almost surprises even him. "If you don't leave in the next five seconds, I'll show this whole bar my techniques and you'll be my live demonstration."

"Teme!" Naruto reprimands.

The woman's frown is twisted, more horrified than upset, eyes nearly bulging from their sockets. Her lips part, no doubt to retort, but then they close.

"I'm sorry, don't mind him," Naruto says. "He just has this problem where his personality is shitty." Sasuke scoffs.

"I-it's fine," she stammers out. She mumbles something that he can't quite make out over the noise. Then she's gone just as quickly as she came. Sasuke turns his attention back to his drink and he lets the liquid scorch his insides.

"Teme, that was really harsh," Naruto reprimands with a disappointed frown. It stings him, but he won't admit to that.

"I don't give a damn," Sasuke growls. "What kind of moron picks people up by asking about the carnage of war? Fucking idiot civilian." His tongue is loose and he's painfully agitated and where **the fuck** is Sakura?

Naruto is silent for a while, before his voice calls out, soft. "She doesn't know," He says. "It's not her fault. Some things you just have to go through to understand."

Sasuke's gulps his liquor down and tries not to ruminate on that.

"Hey, teme, I think you should come over sometime." Naruto says then, and his sincere smile back, as if it was never disturbed to begin with. Sasuke wishes he could wipe away his foul mood that quick. "I...I really want you to get to know Hinata better. I think you'd like her."

Sasuke perches his sole arm on the counter and shifts his weight. The room was spinning and he couldn't tell if he likes this fact or not. "If she's anything like what I remember, I doubt it." He pauses, then eyes Naruto's newfound sneer. "But if she's your family, then she's mine too."

Naruto blinks, dumbfounded, before a wide grin unravels onto his face. And Sasuke is distantly aware of the fact that he feels _pride_ in being the reason for that. "I think I need to get you drunk more often."

Sasuke snorts. "I'm not drunk." The buzz in his body and the vibration in his temple say otherwise.

"You'll love Hinata-chan's cooking," Naruto gleams. "I always tell her she could be a professional chef if she wanted to, it's amazing! When you come over, we'll whip something up with tomatoes in it too, it'll be great!"

Sasuke smirks at this, and the world seemed to slow down for a moment, watching Naruto take the first real gulp of his liquor. His eyes move back to the nearly empty glass in front of him, outlining the fractions of light _—_ distorted and aimlessly scattered. He can feel the smile leave his lips as much as it does his chest.

"She's not coming."

There's a pause, and Naruto says nothing now, merely taking another sip of his liquor.

"She's avoiding me," Sasuke realizes aloud. "She doesn't want to see me." Something is scraping across his insides, dragging all his organs through his body and misplacing them between his bones.

"Hey now, I'm sure it's just the hospital, teme." Naruto says without any real conviction.

Sasuke shuts his eyes and grasps his head. He doesn't bother dignifying Naruto's shitty excuse with a response. "I should've known." His voice is hoarse and he knows it's not because of the burn of the alcohol. "She never responded to my letter." Sasuke lifts his gaze back up, looking beyond into the nothingness as he feels knives carve into him. "She doesn't want anything to do with me anymore."

"You sent her a letter?" Naruto asks. "What the hell! You never sent me anything!"

"She seemed fine before I left, I don't understand." Sasuke groans, quiet and loud at once.

"No, it's nothing like that. Sakura's just really dedicated to her patients, that's all," Naruto says with a frown. "Besides, she's never really liked the bar scene anyway. I'm sure she'll come next time."

"Something's going on. And you don't want to tell me." Sasuke pierces Naruto with a bold gaze, pathetically haughty and indignant for someone who isn't sure which set of blurred blue eyes to set his own on. "What is it?" He's somehow sober enough to see the wobble in Naruto's frown, the tremble of his eye. Sasuke feels his mouth twitch, body heavy, stomach knotting into itself because it's _true_ and he fucking _knew_ it! His hand clenches into a trembling fist. His desperation is starting to show, but he's too drunk to care. "Why doesn't she want to see me? Is it because I left for so long? Is it because I didn't bring her with me? Is she upset with me?"

Naruto tactfully tears away from his gaze, and he palms his glass between his hands, but he doesn't drink more and Sasuke knows why. "Teme, calm down. It's nothing like that, she's just busy. She'll see you, don't worry."

"Bull shit."

Naruto only sighs and his lack of response feels a slow death. Naruto never bull shits like this. Sasuke visualizes himself picking the knives out of his own body. But then they're full length swords taking its place, expertly serrated with her absence and his longing for home. Impulsively, he chugs the rest of his alcohol down in attempt to melt the metal cutting into him.

"Is she s-seeing someone? Is that it?" Naruto flinches. Panic ransacks his brain open and his voice is the most miserable and desperate warble he's ever heard. He feels the pangs again. He wants to take his kunai and jam it into his left wrist, but he doesn't have a left wrist anymore so he settles for moaning to his best friend. "Tell her I don't care. She's team 7. That's all that matters. She doesn't need to be mine, s'okay, I just nee _—_ "

Naruto's resolve seems to grow. "Calm down. She's not dating anyone, geez." Sasuke is scratching the countertop. "You're being fucking weird, teme."

"I'm not being weird," he says defensively. He tries to get a grip on himself but his head is clogged and his body is falling asleep on him and Sakura isn't there with them. "Juss want to make sure she's okay."

"She's fine. You're overthinking this."

"Then why won't she come see me? Does it have to do with you? Are you—" He tries to eye him accusingly. Because a crush was never just a crush when they were little. Not with Sakura. Not with him. Maybe... "Are you—you're having an affair with her?"

There's a loud crack of glass as Naruto slams his liquor down. "For fuck's sake, teme!" The jinchūriki snaps his head to his left, pinning Sasuke with an indignant glare. "If you weren't drunk as hell right now, I'd beat the shit out of you for that." The blonde exhales his anguish and turns away. And Sasuke feels a harrowing guilt. "Just relax, okay? She's busy, but she wants to see you, alright? It's Sakura. She's just busy."

Sasuke's head is a tightly wound balloon that's just been pricked. His stomach is eating itself. The room is spinning and the noise is too loud. "Where is she right now? What's her address? I'll jus' go to her."

"Sasuke, _stop_."

"Fine. I'll _—_ I'll leave a note, I won' even visit _—_ Please _—_ I just _—_ "

" _Sasuke._ " Naruto grounds out. "She'll see you. **Okay?** I'll make sure. Now cut it out, you're freaking me the hell out over here."

Sasuke feels like he's going to die, but he knows better than to keep running his mouth because now he might lose Naruto too and his family is gone all over again. Then there's something rising up in his stomach and he's craning his neck towards the left of his bar stool to vomit.

"Ack! _Teme!_ "

Sasuke feels more bile slime up his throat and now he really wishes this awful alcohol was venom instead. Esophagus burning and fingers shaking, he hacks it up and out.

Naruto sighs. "Dammit." He can vaguely hear the bartender screeching at them. "C'mon, let's get you home."


	3. AM Noir

Sakura's departure from herself was a gradual, but inevitable one. It started as a slow deterioration after Sasuke's abandonment. After her rape, the incline got steeper. Then the war came and all of Konoha was spiraling into rich hues of blacks and reds.

Ino was MIA and it seemed like it was impossible to get her back—stuck in a sickening cycle where every moment was spent grieving the loss of her father much too soon after Asuma's death. Sakura had heard Tenten was even worse and she had trouble wrapping her head around how that was possible.

Ino's mother would constantly be sobbing, heavy with the burden of losing her husband and having a child that didn't know how to smile anymore. And Ino couldn't stand the sound. She took refuge at the Haruno residence, much to Mebuki's antipathy, who never liked her much.

Eventually Tenten attempted suicide and failed. She was committed to the psych ward for a preliminary week but then failed the next evaluation and was retained there for another two more. Sakura heard condescending whispers around the town every time she went out. But Sakura knew it wasn't her fault. Because Lee had Gai and Hinata had Hanabi and Tenten had no one but Neji was still dead and the war just took too much from them.

Sakura's parents started to go through another poorly timed rough patch and then there was only screaming at her house. One day Sakura catched Ino lining her wrists with angry red marks in the bathroom, so she took all the money she had saved up and got a small apartment for the two of them. Ino never thanked her and she still looked like she was 6 feet under, covered in mud and worms with her father, but Sakura never caught her cutting again and that's all that mattered. Even when she found strange men and sometimes women leaving the apartment at late hours, Sakura swallowed her chagrin. She would take anything over the red.

Ino's first authentic reaction was when Tenten's body was wheeled in on a stretcher during a nightmare shift at the hospital. Her limbs had been torn open and there was blood everywhere. Sakura thought she was dead for sure, her hands shaking as she poured chakra into the pale body. Ino was in shock, body convulsing so bad that their medical team didn't even bother to ask her for help. Sakura was certain she'd have been in the same position had it not been for Tsunade's presence anchoring her.

"What the hell happened?!" Tsunade had been furious. "She wasn't even on a mission!"

"There was an anonymous call to the hospital," a paramedic explained. "We're not sure what happened."

It was later revealed that it was done by the hands of the Ame-nin that Tenten had been dating at the time. He was also the one who made the call before fleeing. Sakura wasn't entirely surprised because the few interactions she'd seen between them were uncomfortable at best. She had hoped it was just the strain of a long distance relationship, but shinobi are known to foster unhealthy romances far too often. The psychosis comes with the job.

"I miss him." Tenten said, a week into her hospital stay, mummified in bandages with a voice that barely slipped through the rot. "Isn't that the most pathetic shit you've ever heard? He nearly killed me and I miss him."

Sakura ached all over from that.

"I wish Neji was here."

Sakura felt tired. "Me too."

.

.

.

Eventually, Ino stops bringing home different men and clings to one with amber eyes and blue hair. His name is Jin and he was old enough to be Ino's father. Sakura doesn't bother to point this out because she knows Ino's mother is likely already giving her shit for it. His smirk reminds her of Sasuke and Sakura's nightmares get worse because of it. He has a short temper too but Sakura took comfort in the fact that he was only a low level chunin. Still, she hears Ino crying in her room sometimes and the yelling was constant. Sakura sees Jin eyeing her when Ino isn't around too and she doesn't know how to tell her best friend that she often fantasizes about killing her boyfriend.

"I don't like the way he talks to you," Sakura had said.

"Fights are normal in any relationship," Ino replied.

"He's abusive."

"He's been through a lot," Ino excuses.

Sakura knows neither one of them buy it, but she imagines Ino must want to.

"You pined over a mad man for years." Ino said then. She could see Inoichi's lifeless eyes stare back at her. "Just let me have this."

Sakura couldn't stand looking at his face after that. Nor the screaming. When she wasn't in the hospital, she wore herself out in the training grounds. On the better days she would pass out there too.

"You look like crap, Sakura-chan," Naruto said one day, concerned.

"I feel like crap, Naruto." Sakura replied.

One day at one of Kiba's house parties Ino had gotten too high and her boyfriend too drunk, and he wrapped his fingers around her throat while in the privacy of a vacant bedroom. But his belligerent screaming could be heard from across the house, giving him away. Tenten was the first to reach them and she had snapped. Then there was a kunai lodged in his jugular and Ino and Tenten had been stained with his crimson.

Ino was on the floor, screaming. Tenten was next to her, rocking back and forth clutching a bloody kunai close to her chest, muttering something incomprehensible. Kiba was cursing a mantra, "Fuck...oh fuck what did you...fuck oh my gods, what did you _do?_ "

Sakura's fingers trembled as she tried to stitch the skin of a dead man back together with her chakra. _Maybe he'll wake up._ She hoped, her hands red.

He didn't.

Tenten and Ino spent the night at the psych ward for an evaluation that she didn't think either of them should have passed. But Sakura was partially thankful they did anyway because she was scared to spend even one night alone in the apartment. When she saw Sasuke's hawk tapping on her window that very same night, she remembered Jin's smirk, and his throat cut open. So Sakura took the letter and burned it on a candle's flame. She regretfully watched the paper uncoil in the wake of the embers devouring it. And she caught the last few words of the note before it turned to ash.

 _I miss you._

 _-S_

Sakura threw up in her white toilet bowl and took a kitchen knife to her wrists that night. She didn't heal herself until the next morning.

.

.

.

Ino and Tenten had avoided each other after that. Sakura cried at night because she knew had it not been Tenten who found them, she would've been the one to kill the pathetic fuck. And she almost wishes it was her who did it too because maybe it would ruin her and Ino's relationship but Tenten didn't deserve that. Not after what she had been through.

There was outrage from the nin's family and they threatened Tenten to be put on trial. Had it not been for Naruto and Tsunade defending her, she would've been thrown in a prison cell to rot for at least 6 years. Sakura was endlessly grateful that Lee started to keep his teammate company after that because she was sure Tenten would try to kill herself again. Ino was quiet during the hellish parade and Sakura was probably the only person who didn't pressure her to speak up about it.

Sakura and Ino started to sleep in the same bed the following weeks too because Ino would wake up in the middle of the night crying and screaming and it was easier to calm her down if she was right there next to her. One time she woke up and asked where Jin was, that she had a horrible dream and needed to see him. Sakura didn't have the chance to respond before reality hit her frantic mind and she cried for her Otousan and Asuma sensei. Sakura had held her and cried with her until morning.

.

.

.

"About Tenten," Sakura inquired later that day, handing Ino back a joint they were sharing. She had been formerly opposed to such vices, mostly because it left one vulnerable to unexpected attacks. But then everything became red and she didn't know how else to cope either. So she covered the rooms with genjutsu and seals and got fucked up with Ino every other week. "Are you mad at her?"

Ino took a hit before responding, exhaling with an expression that made Sakura think she wished it was her being burned to fumes and not the joint. "I wish I could be."

A month later Tenten made a second attempt to kill herself and Lee found her in time. Ino finally started to talk to her again after that. Sakura saw the guilt choking Tenten ease just a bit, but she still looked as exhausted and heartbroken as the day of Neji's funeral.

Sakura had started to encourage Hinata to pursue Naruto with vehemence after that. But whether it was for Naruto's sake, Hinata's, or hers—she wasn't sure. Soon enough, she caught them holding hands while returning from the training grounds.

* * *

For Sakura, Sasuke was everywhere and in everything. His gaze was red and drilled through her skin and bone, and she swears there are days where she _feels_ him. And she's so sick of feeling things she didn't want to.

She tried to escape it, driving her first into dummies as hard as she can, throwing herself in every new medical textbook she can find, drinking and smoking with the other girls and sometimes alone too, because Ino had finally moved out.

 _You pined over a mad man for years._ Ino had said. And she wished it wasn't true. _I miss him._ Tenten had said, looking as dead as she felt. And Sakura had known that feeling too well.

Sakura was in etiolation, trapped in a winter she couldn't shake off. She kept thinking about the Uchiha massacre. Because when she finally learned it all it made **sense**. And she wept and wept for Sasuke's burden. Never before had she found her existence to be so loathsome until then—the sacrifice of a clan for lives like hers and her kaasan's.

She was the last of Team 7 to be told the truth, and it was only a few days before the nature of Itachi's last mission in Konoha was revealed to the public, apparently against Sasuke's wishes but on account of Tsunade heavy with the guilt of Hiruzen's choices and hoping to move forward. She wanted to hate Kakashi and Naruto for withholding it from her for so long, but she owed Naruto her life and so much more, and Kakashi was often more of a parental figure than her own parents could ever hope to be. He respected and handled her journeys through trauma better than any adult she knew.

But the knowledge of Konoha's participation in Sasuke's mourning left Sakura sleeping in gradients of terror. Naruto was missing his right arm and sometimes his head too. Kakashi was nothing but a black, charred corpse. She saw Sasuke and he looked like God. He was armed, kusanagi in hand, cutting into her, drawing intricate designs into her organs. _Where's Itachi?_ He'd ask, his eyes as dark as the void she handed her heart to when she fell for a 12 year old boy who lost everything. _I want my niisan back. Konoha stole him from me and I want him back._ And Sakura couldn't say anything because _he was right_. They stole everything from him and this was just deserts. They deserved to die, hands stained with Uchiha blood. But that doesn't stop her from screaming herself awake.

.

.

.

It seemed like each year that went by had Konoha feeling less like home and more like a still, bleak painting that Sakura didn't know how she fell into. She started to have strange visions of black birds and their chirps reminded her of Sasuke's chidori. She saw them stained with red beaks.

Her clairvoyance does not stop her father from dying. He had been killed in a grocery market with three others from a kunoichi who had snapped. It was a pathetic way to go and a testament to the civilian lifestyle he lived. The nin didn't even make it to trial before killing herself too. Sakura couldn't tell if there was any justice in that.

Sakura's mother, who had always been prone to depression, shuts down after that. Eight months later, Sakura found her dead on her bedroom floor the anniversary of her father's birthday. She was laying in her own vomit, with empty pill bottles scattered along the floor. Sakura held her corpse in her lap and oscillated between sobbing and screaming harder than she ever had in her life.

She doesn't know how long she was sitting with her mother's body in her arms, but eventually the neighbours had called the police because of the noise. The next day, Naruto, Sai, and Ino helped shuffle through her belongings and empty the house.

"Did she leave a note?" Naruto had asked.

"She _is_ the note," Sakura had replied.

Kakashi helped Sakura prepare the funeral and sell it. And she supposed that was a grim fit.

.

.

.

Sakura found it easy to convince her sensei (now Hokage) to let her join ANBU. She was more than qualified, but she figured he'd put up more of a fight, knowing her interest was triggered with the events of her parents death. She's thankful he didn't.

Sakura works with mainly groups at first, sometimes leading, but usually preferring to follow because then she can convince herself there's less blood on her hands when a teammate goes missing. She enjoys the solo missions the best, because she spends less time engulfed in paranoia without the weight of a whole squad's lives in her hands.

She uses layers of genjutsu on her enemies when she can, practicing and honing her skills, marking the value of her progress by the height of their screams. She's sickened and in pain and yet she's ominously attracted to the sounds. Sometimes she screams with them, and it makes her feel less alone. She finds herself asking strange questions in the midst of interrogations before killing them. _What was your favorite toy when you were younger? What's your favorite weapon now? What were your parents like? Did they kill people too? Did they hold you close and kiss you when you had a nightmare?_

 _Have you ever raped someone?_

She isn't surprised when some men admit to doing so in the midst of tortured screams. They repented to her as if she was their God. And perhaps, in those moments, she was.

She relished in the horror in their eyes when she undid their belts, slid their pants over their hips. "What's wrong?" she would ask. "Don't you like it?" Sometimes she played with their phallus, admiring the fleshy feel of them in her gloved hands. Sometimes they even grew hard. She loved watching those nin bleed out after cutting the appendage off with a kunai. And on the days she felt sick with loss—heart barely beating inside a monochrome tomb—she castrated them with her hands instead. Their screams were so high pitched in volume that she laughs while she cries because that's kind of what she sounded like when her insides were mutilated by a stranger too.

One day it's a young woman she pushes her blade into, her brown strands long and her eyes gold, struck with terror. Sakura pet the girl affectionately while she bleeds out. "Shhh...shhh...it'll be over soon." Sakura said, "It's okay. You don't need to be scared." She rubbed the curve of her cheek, smearing the red over her face with tenderness, as if she didn't just run her through with a blade. Sakura had pushed her healing chakra into the trembling body of her victim, as she often does. It helps to numb the pain as they die. When she looks into the frightened eyes of the young woman, she imagines it's her own face she is looking into then—imagines it is a younger version of herself she is killing.

She pulls off her mask and kisses the girl's sweat slick forehead sweetly. "It won't hurt there. He can't follow you." Because Little Sakura is innocent and good. Little Sakura is going to find some kind of peace, some kind of heaven when she dies. And her parents will be there to hold her close and kiss her because she finally woke up from the nightmare of loving a boy with ghosts in his eyes. Otousan will make bad jokes, and Okaasan will finally be proud because there's no demons in her belly to purge. And Sasuke will surely reign his terror in hell, far, far away from her. In death, they'll finally be separated. In death, her head will not be muddled with his beautiful face, his haunting absence, his misplaced grief.

And what freedom she found—watching the kunoichi take her last breath before slumping onto the cold ground. What relief.

Sakura held the body close and cried.

.

.

.

Sakura had enough sense to resign the next day. She doesn't go the hospital for two week, and every night either Ino or Naruto was in her bed, holding her, while she cried into their shoulder. Ino never asked what's wrong, nor did she lie and tell her it's going to be okay. More often than not, she cried with her too then made them both drink water together. She doesn't bother forcing Sakura to eat, because she never did when life was decomposing her insides too. Naruto kissed Sakura's head and told her that he loves her, that there are many people who love her and that will never change. And Sakura knows it's true but she also knows it doesn't matter because love can't kill the horrors that came with growing up.

Naruto visited her more often in general. He talked about him and Hinata, and Sakura took refuge in their love. It's soft and warm, and Naruto's smile is incandescent. For most, romance had finally progressed from a morbid series of trial-and-error to things-are-actually-alright. And Sakura is blessed with a vicarious and vital fulfillment from their peace. And this is in part because she had to–she knew she'd never get that from her own broken heart.

And maybe she should have tried to fix it but she couldn't be bothered. Relationships were unfathomable things because most of the time she still couldn't figure out how to touch herself again without crying. So she took the pressure off, lowered her expectations. She didn't have to be happy. She just had to be functional.

Eventually, Sakura started to feel like she was. Even the bad dreams started to come in more sparse.

.

.

.

And then, she was told he was going to return to Konoha.

His presence had a way of dictating her every branch of mind and body, ever since they were little. So naturally, hearing about Sasuke's letter from Naruto sends her brain reeling out of her head and into a red sinkhole of every death she had ever envisioned by his hands. She breaks the mug clasped tightly between her fingers. "What?"

Naruto flinches at the abrasive gesture, his eyes following the fine shards of porcelain as hot tea spills over her hands and onto her carpeted floor.

Sakura swallows hard and tries to name off the systems of the body to take her mind off of the memory of Sasuke's arm plunging through her body. _Respiratory … Cadiovascular … Endocrine … Muscular … Skeletal…_

Naruto is quiet, leaning into her couch with crossed arms. He adorns a dramatic pout. "Sakura-chan it's been _years_. I thought you said you got help with this."

"It's not that simple, Naruto," she snaps, offended.

"It's _Teme_. I don't get what's the big deal, it's been so long and he's been doing so much to change everything, Kakashi even said so." Sakura wants to scream, but Naruto saved the village, saved _her_ so she bites her tongue and focuses on his orange jacket. Maybe she can absorb his sunny disposition by staring at the offensive brightness long enough.

"I know, I know." She wants to brush him off but Naruto doesn't know how to quit. She wishes she could keep up with him. But nobody shrugs off anguish like Naruto. He was the martyr that never died—a God among humans.

"Then you'll come welcome him home with me, right?" Naruto asks, persistent. Sakura tries to forget what blinding heat electrocuting you feels like. But the power of a Sharingan's genjutsu isn't praised without reason.

She clutches her forearms and makes an effort to impersonate someone who's not on the verge of having a panic attack. "Look, I'm working on it. But I'm just not ready, okay?" She gets up then, eyes averted as she mechanically reaches for her wallet and keys on the kitchen counter. "I'm going to go do groceries. I need milk."

"Sakura-chan…"

"I have to go, Naruto. Help yourself to the fridge." She all but ran out.

* * *

Soon enough, Sasuke returns, and as if Sakura doesn't struggle enough with Naruto, she finds his presence worming itself into the conversations outside of Team 7.

"I heard Sasuke's back," Ino says, taking a bite out of her dango.

Sakura strategically starts to sip her glass of orange juice, completely unprepared for this conversation, though she should have expected it.

"Coincidentally, you've been walking around with your chakra masked these past few days too," Ino comments, nonchalant and knowing.

Sakura starts to gulp it down then.

"Relax, forehead." Ino shakes her head at the spectacle. "If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine." Ino eyes her dango, sorting where to bite next. "I do think masking your chakra is seriously overkill though. He's not going to stalk you."

Sakura puts her glass down and makes a point to speak softer than she feels. "You don't know him."

Ino quirks her eyebrow. "You haven't had a real conversation with him since you were like fourteen. Chances are, you don't either."

"Thirteen," she corrects. Ino gives her an unimpressed look, as if to enunciate the point.

Ino is right, but she is wrong. Sakura _does_ know him. She would always know him. Even when she didn't. Sakura takes a deep breath then, inhaling and exhaling through her nose because she feels the tell-tale wave of nausea hitting her then. "Well, better safe than sorry, I guess," she mutters.

"What does 'sorry' entail, exactly?" Ino takes a sip out of her lemonade. "Mildly unpleasant small talk?"

Sakura shakes her head. "Sasuke doesn't do small talk." She scratches at her thigh beneath the counter to keep herself reigned into reality instead of the sillhoutes in her head.

"Then?" Ino quirks an eyebrow.

Sakura shifts uncomfortably in her seat. "I thought you said it's fine if I don't want to talk about it."

Ino looks at her inquisitively, and Sakura stiffens beneath her gaze. The blonde sighs then, "Okay. You're right." Sakura feels the tension leave her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," she dismisses while she checks her fingernails for blood. All clear.

"I'm thinking of requesting more missions again," Ino says then. "You should too. I think we've both been cooped up in that hospital for too long."

"Maybe." Sakura finally takes a bite out of her own dango, now that the conversation has ventured onto more comforting territory. She wasn't hungry but it helped to keep her senses distracted. "The hospitals are still always hectic though, I don't know if they'll let me."

"You're Sakura Haruno," Ino says, working on her second dango. "Of course they'll let you. And maybe we'll even be put on the same team."

"They rarely put two medics on a team. It'll be a long time before we're ever on a mission together," Sakura says.

Ino shrugs. "You're not just support. You're a front line hitter as much as you are a medic in the platoon's rear." Ino says with a tinge of pride before finishing her glass. "I mean, that's why they put us together last time, isn't it?"

"No," Sakura snorts. "When we were put on that team, _you_ were the medic. I was dead weight that wasn't fucked up enough for the psych ward's priority list."

Ino is quiet now, eyes downcast. And Ino's never quiet. Sakura feels a tinge of regret for responding so bluntly.

"I'll ask Kakashi," Sakura decides. "You're right. I could use a break from the hospital too."

* * *

 **A/N:** Sorry, it's in the handbook that you can't be a main character unless you have a tragic past and dead parents. Kishimoto must have forgotten about Sakura but it's okay, I gotchu Kishi, I gotchu


	4. Face Paintings

Sakura's first mission in years is estimated to last less than two days, but she still finds herself heated in anticipation. She hasn't traveled since she was in ANBU, excluding diplomatic conferences. But she hardly remembers much of it. She hardly remembers much of anything besides the death tolls, the adrenaline, and the clandestine despair.

Their mission is a simple rescue one and she is placed in a team of four. There's one sensor, two combat nins, (one of which had just been on the last mission with the nin they were meant to retrieve) and her, the medic. The team leader is monstrously tall with sleek black hair and hard features—an intimidating shinobi named Enra. Sakura can tell the kunoichi was from Root. Stone faced as shinobi often come, there is something about the stiffness in which Root members spoke with that gave way to hardness that other shinobi couldn't quite emulate.

They are being sent to find two nin who have been separated from their team along the border of Tanigakure. One of the missing nin is a Hyuga, and Sakura morbidly wonders if a team would be sent out in the dead of night with such haste had it not been for the threat of losing a nin with a kekkei genkai. It's no secret that certain shinobi are valued over others. If there is one thing being introduced to the shinobi world alongside Naruto and Sasuke taught her, it is that.

The squad is silent when they meet at the gate and Sakura can feel each of them momentarily study her. Whether it's because of the unruly cotton candy on her head or because they recognize her as Tsunade's apprentice, she's not sure. But she's that much more thankful that they are quiet.

They head out towards Tani, leaping from branches of Konoha's thick oak. There's the incessant rattle of crickets and the occasional _hoo-hoo_ of an owl. It's frigid at this time of night and the air stings Sakura's flesh more than she cares to admit. She hopes she isn't as out of practice as she feels.

They run for long hours before their sensor stops. "Wait!" His cry comes from her left, deep and boyish at once. Her feet ground into the branch she lands on, toes curling with the momentum of her forceful plant. The sensor is quiet for a moment, head tilted to the side. He's the only chunin in the group and with his scrawny build, bronze skin, and viridian hair, Sakura can't help but admire how beautiful he looks amongst the trees. It is as if he hails from forest nymphs.

"Well?" A teammate, Haru, impatiently asks. He is much bulkier and has long blonde hair, tied back into a braid. He is the nin who had been with the squad they are meant to save and his excessive agitation is forgiven for the sole fact. He looks tired and anxious and horribly guilt ridden.

Sakura knows that shame—feels it every time she sees the red. But she's learned to keep her mouth shut and mind focused when she can help it. Panic attacks can't bring the dead back to life, even if the heart doesn't know any better.

"I think...I think I can feel them. It's faint. But I'm picking up a chakra that matches the Hyuga's description," the sensor says. _Kaito._ Sakura remembers. She studies him closer and she could have sworn that she's worked with him before. She remembers green hair and almond eyes behind a rabbit mask. But this sensor is only a chunin and Sakura was insane during her times in ANBU.

"Is he alone?" Sakura asks. _Are we too late?_

"No. There's one other chakra signature," he says. "It's so faint, I can't tell if it's rival nin or not."

Sakura lets out a shaky breath. They'll probably be stumbling upon a body soon. She didn't expect any less, but she often hopes anyway. She suspects it's a trait she's retained only because of Naruto's influence.

"Which way?" Enra speaks this time, and the fixture of her lips even as the words come out unsettles Sakura.

"Left of here. About 60 kilometers," Kaito says.

"We'll follow your lead," Enra says. And then they're off.

It's daybreak by the time they arrive, the sky warmed in hues of oranges and pinks, undisturbed by the strifes of nin below.

The first thing that hits Sakura is the _smell._ It's heavy, and sharp, like someone shoved incinerated coal right against her nostrils. Her gloved hand smacks over her mouth and nose, stomach protesting violently. _Katon,_ she thinks horribly. The squad was burned to death. Just like Kakashi in her dreams.

Then they finally come upon three leaf shinobi by a river, and only one is visibly conscious.

The first is nothing but a charred corpse with several limbs missing, the obvious source of the combustion wafting in the air. Another is unconscious, his legs are bloody stumps beneath wet bandages, plasma oozing through. The last is the Hyuga, propped up but barely conscious. Maybe it is just the way he is curled up and shaking, but he looks far too young to be a shinobi. Sakura spots charcoal in his lap, and it's only then that she realizes his right hand had been severed too. She shuts her eyes to take a deep breath through the leather of her gloves. Then she rushes forward.

His pearl eyes pass from Haru and then to Sakura. "Oh," he squeaks, arms spasming around his knees. "I d-don't—Please—"

Sakura is already kneeling by the nin with their legs missing, and swallowing her horror at the puddle of blood. The skin is purple, then black and red and she thinks the nature of the burn may be the only reason why he hasn't bled out. _An explosive_ she thinks. It wasn't a katon. It was a blast. _Shit._ He's definitely going to be hemorrhaging.

She slides her palm onto the nin's chest, pumps chakra into the nin's chest. She treats the lungs first, sewing injured tissue back with the snaking of her chakra into the nin's body. _Decompression. Higher oxygen flow. Fluid management._ Sakura wishes there was another medic, or at least more equipment. But all she has is her chakra so it will have to do.

"My hand," the Hyuga boy croaks. His voice is the most miserable thing her heart has heard all week. But the blood is oozing, smearing against ash, and she needs to remember triage.

She's ripping off the bloody bandages and fastidiously pushing chakra into the stubs with one hand while the other disrobes what it can. And the body is so **black.** And any flesh not covered in charcoal is swollen red. At once, she sees muscles spasm to life, and she tries to analyze where the decay begins and ends. _Please. **Please** make it._

Sakura sees green creep into her peripheral then. "Sakura-san," Kaito says. "How can I help?"

She is speaking instantly, nods over to the Hyuga. "Blood replenishing pills. Give him two. And one blue and yellow pill in my pouch." He moves quick, and Sakura is grateful, feeling him wrestling in her pouch in methodical haste. "I'll see if he needs more. Start disinfecting his wound with the alcohol too."

"Who did this?" Enra asks.

Sakura's eyes dart to the boy, who's trembling, his muted lips set in a straight line. It's usually a bit hard to see where a Hyuga's iris begins and ends, blending nearly perfect into the sclera. But his are bloodshot, lids swollen, and cheeks tracked with the line of his tears. He makes a noise low in his throat, gaze flitting around like he's not really sure where to look.

"A bandit," Haru responds then, since the Hyuga couldn't seem to.

Kaito scoffs at that. "You're joking. _Bandits_ did this to you?" He places pills in the Hyuga's remaining hand.

"Not ordinary bandit." The boy finally says, before sliding the pills in his mouth with quivering fingers. He tries to swallow the water Kaito hands him too, but it ends up splashing most of it around his face and clothes because of the tremors.

"There was only one?" Sakura asks, scrunching her nose, trying not to inhale too deep. The air alone is so charred, she can't bear to look at the body of the last teammate just yet.

"J-just one," the Hyuga responds. His voice sounds like his throat has just been freshly sanded.

"Is he dead?" Enra asks.

"She," the Hyuga corrects with a crack in his voice. Kaito brings the canteen to his lips, helping him drink this time. "Yes," he says, his voice marginally steadier before Sakura sees his face turn towards her. "Please. I—I found my hand for you. Please put it back."

Sakura turns her head to face him. His eyes are white and red and haunting, glazed with desperation. "I'm sorry," Sakura says with an apologetic frown. "I can't reattach it. It's been burned too badly."

"It's my right. I need it," the boy replies, as if it didn't matter. _Gods, he looks so young._

"This bandit was a shinobi?" Enra asks, carrying on as if he isn't having a breakdown. Sakura has to turn her head to look at the kunoichi, because she can't tell if it's the question or her mind that's misplaced right now. But Enra is nonchalant, and she gazes an exterior too cool and analytical. No, Sakura decides. She's not the alien here. Enra is. She eyes the burnt corpse they've all been purposefully neglected—except Haru, who just keeps staring at it.

"Yes," Haru answers this time. His voice is calm despite the hellish look in his eyes. "She had to have been. She used explosives. Out of thin air. No tags." She wonders how long he's been watching the body.

"And you **ran**!" The Hyuga squacks suddenly, the sound high pitched and so tense it snaps everyone's eyes towards him. And the gaze he pins with Haru is belligerent, his lips peeling back to show white, clenched teeth that looked like they would snap from the sheer force behind them. Sakura can see the thin blue lines by his eyes begin to protrude. He looks like madness. _Fuck. Fuck he's going to kill him,_ she thinks. "Just left us for dead!" Kaito is rigid next to him, nimble arms cocked like he's about to pin him down.

Sakura intervenes, speaks with a controlled calm while pulling out a syringe and filling it with fluid from the bag on her back. "He just went to get help," she defends. She slowly inserts the needle into the unconscious nin she is still tending to. She needs to work fast. He needs attention. _He's just a boy._ "If he didn't leave, then—"

"Me! She came for _me_!" the Hyuga screeches. He lifts his bloody stub, pointing it at Haru accusingly, his shaking more violent than ever. "And you ran! Left me for dead. I'm a Hyuga!"

"I came back!" Haru's cry is too vehement and awkward, though he tries to school his features into something more composed.

"It'll be alright," Sakura says, imitating a professional medic who hopes to placate their patient. But she feels like an imposter. "You're still alive, don't worry. We're here, we'll take ca—"

"Fuck you!" the Hyuga spits, and Sakura tenses beneath his vitriol, caught by the way his veins and eyes pop out of his small head. His face is ghastly, and his arm is spasming with the surges of his trauma. "Hiashi-sama—He will kill you!" His cry is shrill and his head swivels in jagged motions to look ahead, veiny white fixed on something not there. "Will kill Rokudaime! Kill all of you for this!" He looks rabid, and deluded, and starved for justice. Sakura doesn't blame him.

"Watch your fucking tongue, brat!" Kaito seethes, grabbing the dark locks and yanking them down, his other hand tightening around the Hyuga's wrist so hard his knuckles turn white.

"Stop," Sakura says, her voice hushed and soft, veiling the panic and guilt for the boy's upset. She should have given him something that would tend to his anxiety faster. Instead she's riled him up. _I'm disappointed in you_ , Okaasan would say sometimes, though not always with words. Sakura nods with a hard swallow because she's disappointed too.

Sakura places her hand on one of Kaito's, gently prying it away from the boy's hair and he lets her. "It's okay, he's just in shock." She cups the Hyuga's trembling face, who looks at her wide eyed and then suddenly _so sad._ He looks like he's about to cry. She pushes her warm chakra through him, tracing his chakra pathways down to his brain. His shaking quells just a bit and his web of veins gradually grow faint beneath the white of his skin. "Be gentle. This isn't easy." Her hands wrap in green and she surveys his wounded stub delicately. This one wasn't blasted off, it was cut. She needs to cauterize the wound.

Kaito acquiesces, relaxing his grip on the Hyuga's wrist until finally letting go. Still he remains fixed beside her, hoving over the boy as if he expected him to snap any minute. Haru finally goes to make himself busy, taking out a scroll to seal the charred corpse so they can take it back to Konoha. Sakura could not be more thankful when the malodorous fumes dilute in her lungs.

"Where is the body of the bandit?" Enra asks then. "We should take it back with us too." Sakura wishes Enra would just shut up already, even though her questions are essential to protocol.

"Explo-ded," The Hyuga boy mumbles, a hitch in his breath. "And took Nohmi's legs." He gasps and the shaking gets a little worse. Sakura pushes more chakra in. She wants to run her fingers through his hair like when otousan did when she was scared, but she would just stain him with blood.

"Where was this encounter?" Enra asks. Sakura chews her lip, glancing up at the boy only to find his eyes pasted to her work. He doesn't look like he heard Enra at all.

"Please put it back. I was looking for a long time," The Hyuga says, and he doesn't even look at Sakura—just stares at his bloody stub like it's not real. "Just try. Please. It's my right." He's shaking so hard, Sakura has to hold his wrist to continue healing him.

"Let's put off the questions right now," Sakura decides. She quickly bandages the wound. "Just look around for it. It'll be hard to miss if there were explosives." Sakura pushes his shirt up to search for other wounds. "He couldn't have carried the bodies far either."

"Fine," Enra agrees, and she sounds neither annoyed nor pleased with the suggestion. "I'm taking Kaito in case there's an ambush. Will you and Haru be okay?"

"Yes," Sakura says, before she starts to fish in her medical bag for a vial. "Just don't take too long. I'm worried about this one," she nods her head towards the nin who had their legs blown off. "He lost a lot of blood. It's a miracle he's still alive."

"Will fifteen minutes do?" Enra asks.

"That's fine."

Enra nods, then her and Kaito take off. Sakura tries to engage the Hyuga, asking questions about his family and Konoha to ease his tension and keep him conscious. She takes pains to be gentle when she touches him, and her heart aches when he responds with a despondent "Oh." when she explains that she's sorry but he won't be getting his right hand back and he'll just need to use his left from now on.

Haru stays silent throughout, caught in a trance. Sakura shoots him a question every now and then to gage his mental state. He was looking at the body too intensely for her not to be worried. She's sure he knows what she's doing too, because his responses are terse and laced with cynicism. Still, they're sweet relief in comparison to the crippling panic in the Hyuga's eyes.

When they run back to Konoha, Sakura is the one to carry the nin with their legs missing. The weight makes her slower than it should, but no one notices except for her. She desperately tries to forget they're carrying a corpse that has been blown to black.

The Hyuga manages to stay conscious for it all, and he asks her to reattach his hand two more times before he finally realizes it's gone for good.

* * *

The retrieved nin are deposited in the hospital before Sakura's team reports back to Shikamaru—Kakashi himself is stuck in a meeting. Enra finishes explaining the details of how she gathered very little from the remnants of the battle.

"It was done with intention," Enra says. "The enemy wasn't trying to kill our nin with her blast, she was trying to make sure she left no remains before she died." Sakura's stomach curls in. She should be used to this by now—a nin choosing death for a grander cause—but she's not. She can't help but think of Enra's word choice. _The enemy._ She thinks of Sai, of Danzo, of the rigorous brainwashing that was upheld Root. But it doesn't matter what fancy rhetoric they slap on, she knows; they're all the same—pawns on the chessboard.

"I guess that means we can expect more to come," Shikamaru surmises. "And the Hyuga is missing a hand." He sounds genuinely tired rather than apathetic like usual.

"I couldn't reattach it," Sakura explains, and her voice is soft in apology. "It had been too badly burned."

Shikamaru sighs, his hand coming to cradle his chin. His eyes slant off to the side, thoughtful. "This isn't good. Hiashi will be upset."

"At least he only lost a hand. If he lost his legs or ended up dead like the other ones, the Hyugas would have Hokage-sama's head on a platter," Kaito says, and there's a faint amusement in his tone that makes Sakura cringe.

Haru's discomfort is more audible than hers, a sound slipping out that he tries to cover with a rough cough. When she looks over at him, she can see a steadfast guilt at the mention of his mutilated teammates. It makes her heart expand in her chest in a painful way, like it's been punctured on her own ribs.

"They're _both_ shinobi," Sakura says, her head swiveling towards Kaito and Shikamaru in what is likely misplaced vehemence. But she doesn't care. They need to know. _Everyone_ needs to know. Her head is throbbing with upset. " _All of us_ are. And _all of us_ could be dismembered or die in the line of duty every time we walk out on a mission."

"Yeah, but he's a Hyuga," Kaito responds, and there's a look of disbelief in his features. Something that she's sure is meant to mock her intelligence. "And a young one at that."

"So?" Sakura challenges sternly, and she can feel her heart speed up. "What are you implying?"

There's a flash of realization across his face. "N-nothing," Kaito sputters, and his expression contorts in such genuine alarm that Sakura instantly feels guilty for lashing out. "I-I'm sorry, I just—"

 _"Really?_ Aren't you a sannin? _"_ Haru asks, his tone so haughty and demeaning, her anger is pushing right back against her forehead. "You can't _actually_ be this stupid."

Sakura is snapping before she can think. "You got something to say, asshole?" She took pity on him for most of his outbursts, with his eyes perpetually wide with the gore of the day. But now all she wants to do is grind his bones into the tower walls, consequences be damned.

"Yeah, I do," Haru sneers right back, hot red in the face. "A couple of things, actually."

"Fuck off, Haru," Kaito spits. "You've been nothing but unhelpful this entire mission, all you've done is bitch and—"

"I'm still here," Shikamaru says, looking every bit as unimpressed as he sounds. "Just thought I'd remind you." There's an awkward, explosive pause as the three struggle to flatten their emotions for the sake of formality. But they've been with singed bodies all day, they've found nothing concrete to the cause, and Shikamaru's nonchalance is hardly motivating for anyone.

"I think you misunderstand, Haruno," Enra says, so monotone it grates Sakura's head. She huffs, turns away from Haru to look at the towering kunoichi. Her expression is empty and mute, and Sakura feels her anger wafting away in the face of it. She doesn't know what to feel when her gaze falls on that mask. "Nin with kekkei genkai get priority," Enra says flatly, like it's a matter of fact—a rule of physics itself rather than the result of a flawed system.

It almost pricks her, the way they've collectively misinterpreted her upset. But Sakura is not articulating herself well and she knows it.

And all she can think about is how she told Naruto that she'll get better so she can speak to Sasuke. Like she _owes_ him that. Their precious, beloved Sasuke. Special. Like Naruto. And unlike her.

"Exactly," Haru says. Then he shoots her with a glare that's paved in a new distress—envy. Sakura is overcome with the horrible sensation that she's looking at her reflection. "You should count yourself lucky. If you hadn't been trained by Senju Tsunade, the greatest honor someone like you could ever achieve is _dying_ by a shinobi with a kekkei genkai."

Sakura averts her eyes, inhaling sharply as her mind spins with the revolutions of red soaked stars and the madness of a beautiful boy who lost everything. She fights the urge to place her palm over her chest, the place he shot his hand through once upon a time. She shouldn't know what it's like to die by chidori. But she does.

 _Ductus arteriosus. Pulmonary artery. Pulmonary vein. Superior vena cava. Crista dividens..._

"Or dying to protect one," Kaito's voice smoothes through her head, determined and full of revere. Sakura exhales as her mind puddles into the calm cerulean and glowing grin of a beautiful, knuckleheaded boy. When she finally looks at Kaito, she finds his gaze delicately soft and distant too. She wonders who put the sun in his sky.

Shikamaru crosses his arms and shakes his head. "I don't have time for this," he sighs, bored. "Go mope about being a nobody somewhere else. And have a written report submitted by Thursday morning." He dismisses them with a turn of his heel.

* * *

"Sakura-chan, you _have_ to see Sasuke," Naruto says, guzzling down ramen at a nauseating pace.

Sakura turns her head to avoid the display, and tries to block out the wet sound of his slurps. "Not this again, Naruto." She thinks she's going to be sick.

"You don't understand. He was so _drunk_ the other night. And he—"

"Can we _please_ talk about something else?" Sakura asks, fingers tight around her glass of water. She forces a breath, before swirling the liquid with tilts of her hand. She hones in on the clang of ice against the glass, then takes a sip. It's pleasantly cold, and helps abate the queasiness, just enough for her to meet Naruto's dramatic pout.

"Oh fine," He says, begrudgingly, before proceeding to inhale his ramen like it's the planet's only cure for bad company.

They had decided to check out a new ramen stand on the outskirts of the main village, right by the civilian area where Sakura's parents used to live. And this didn't unsettle her as much as she thought it would, mostly because they're dressed so casually. The ramen isn't as good as Ichiraku, but Naruto still ate six bowls. Sakura has only eaten a quarter of her first before placing her focus solely on her water. She's sick of ramen.

"How's Hinata?" Sakura asks, eager to steer the conversation away from the cause of her nightmares.

Naruto takes the bait easy, his face lighting up in that way it always does when he thinks about her. "Amazing, as always." He sighs sweetly with rose speckled eyes. "She sings a lot more these days. In the open too! Not just when she thinks I'm not paying attention." Naruto's gaze is whistful, and _proud_. "Her voice is _so_ beautiful, Sakura-chan. She's just so...I don't know."

This tender part of Naruto, soft and yearning, is not new concerning Hinata. But it's been amplified since the pregnancy. Sakura can't help but to think of how lucky they both are to exist as nothing but themselves in these moments. It's such a rare thing for shinobi. "I can't believe you're going to be a father," Sakura says.

"Me neither." His smile is gentle, a different kind of honest than the usual loudness of his grin. "I still can't believe I even have **her.** And now a baby? It's crazy, it's…"

"Everything you've always wanted," Sakura finishes. Putrid smells forgotten, Sakura is melting beneath his warmth.

"Yeah," he rasps. Sakura is happy for him. Endlessly. Naruto deserves the world he saved.

"Have you thought about names yet?" She asks then, her finger trailing along the seam of their wooden counter. She suddenly remembers young girls asking each other that long ago, and she recalls herself thinking _It doesn't matter. Sasuke-kun can pick._ Her nails leave white lines along the grain.

Naruto's smile dampens too, although more with a wobbling uncertainty as he scratches the back of his neck bashfully. "I mean, I have a couple but Hinata didn't seem to like them."

"Really?" Sakura asks, intrigued for more reasons than one. "Like what?"

"Well...okay, okay, hear me out on this…" Naruto says, clears his throat, and looks her dead in the eye with a twinkle in his. "Ichiraku Uzumaki." Her anticipation splats flat on the ground.

Sakura rolls her eyes. " _Of course_ you would."

"Don't give me that look! It's a good idea!"

"Well, I guess you'd keeping the tradition of bland names centered around food," Sakura mutters, unimpressed before taking a sip of her water, wondering how he could be so obsessed with ramen while she's trying to avoid getting sick from the smell alone.

"Hey!" Naruto scowls and folds his arms. "You're one to talk. A pink haired girl named Sakura?" He rolls his eyes, mockingly. " _Gee_ , wonder where your parents came up with _that_!"

Sakura's eye twitches just slightly. Yes, it was her father, known for his self indulgent humor, who had named her. He thought it was brilliant and fitting, which is just so like him. She doesn't agree with the sentiment, but she loves her name anyway simply because he gave it to her.

Sakura fists her hand in the thick fabric of Naruto's collar and violently pulls him close, lips twisting in a slightly humored but mostly maniacal smirk. "I dare you to say that again, you little orange shit," she whispers. Naruto mock cowers on cue.

"Dickless! Ugly!"

They snap their heads to the left to see Sai and Ino approaching the booth. "Oh," Naruto says, his smile larger than ever. "Hey you two!"

"Hey Forehead," Ino takes a seat next to Sakura, unmoved by the scene she had stumbled upon. She helps herself to Sakura's barely touched ramen. "How was the mission?"

"Fine," Sakura spat reflexively, turning to face Ino after releasing Naruto. She examines her friend, at once spotting several shopping bags she had dropped by her seat. When Ino only quirks a brow, inquiring for more, Sakura takes a moment to contemplate her thoughts. _Horrible. Traumatizing._ "Suspicious," she picks.

"Suspicious?" Ino echoes, slurping the ramen into her mouth in a manner much more eloquent than Naruto could ever manage. The sight must inspire the jinchuruuki though, because she hears him ordering another bowl.

"Yeah, it was ...strange," Sakura says, pensive. She thinks of the young Hyuga and tries to swallow the memory of his radiating panic with the cool of her water. "I was meaning to tell you about it," her voice is somber.

"What happened?" Ino quirks an eyebrow and Sai sits next to her, setting down a few bags of his own. He wraps his arm around her shoulder and Sakura watches as his fingers rub tentative. At once, Ino turns her head to her boyfriend and her fingers come to wrap around his own. Her voice is soft, and Sakura imagines her expression is even softer. "Split a bowl with me?"

"Of course, Beautiful." Sai returns her smile with a natural cadence, and Sakura is bewildered by the ease of it. How far Sai has come. She forgets he used to be as awkward and empty as Enra. He orders a bowl of ramen for the two of them.

"Yeah, you didn't tell me you had a mission," Naruto chimes in, voice coarse with slight offense. "What happened?" Naruto asks, starting on his seventh bowl.

"We're in public," Sakura responds. The four of them had long discarded any notion of secrecy concerning missions between each other. Still, they keep discretion while in open areas. It was dangerous to talk out in the open.

"There's no other shinobi around for at least 20 feet," Ino informs, her voice slightly hushed as she pulls apart a new pair of chopsticks. "You can keep it broad."

"Wait, how do you know?" Naruto quirks a brow, squinting at Ino in suspicion.

"She is a sensor, Dickless." Sai supplies, and Sakura can almost hear the slight offense in the statement. As if Ino's prowess is an obvious adornment she wears for everythone to see.

"Oh. Yeah." Naruto grins then, ear to ear and blinding. "Sorry, it's been awhile since I've been on a mission with you, Ino." He scratches the back of his neck bashfully. "I guess I forgot." Ino waves it off with her hand before urging Sakura to continue with an insistent look.

"It was a retrieval mission," Sakura says, voice low. "We rescued a squad that was nearly decimated by a single bandit. And there was a nin with a kekkei genkai on that squad too."

"Wait, a bandit?" Ino asks, maintaining her whisper. Ino and Sai look at each other then.

"What is it?" Sakura asks, gut twisting. She hates the idea of needing to revisit the scene. Amputations are commonplace, but there is little medics can do when explosives are involved. Nothing can be recovered that way.

"This job sounds awfully similar to our mission," Ino says, then carefully takes a mouthful of ramen, chewing thoughtfully. "We had self proclaimed bandits, too. I mean, they were totally defected nin but they _said_ bandits."

" _Our_ mission?" Naruto repeats, and Sakura is almost astounded he remembers to keep his voice down.

"Mine and Beautiful's," Sai clarifies, before reaching for Ino's chopsticks.

"Wait, what!?" Naruto loses all discretion in a beat. "You two go on missions together!?"

"Keep your voice down. We're in the middle of a civilian market, you moron." Sakura crosses her arms, shooting an discomforted glare at her blonde-headed teammate.

"Yeah, and?" Ino says, eyeing Naruto before sliding carefully woven noodles into her mouth.

"What the hell!" Naruto growls, ignoring Sakura's pleas. "Kaka-sensei never puts me on the same squad as Hinata! And I actually ask too!"

"Naruto, you idiot, shut your trap," Sakura reprimands, shrinking into herself as she spots a few heads turning in their direction. She wishes she could wash out the pink of her hair. It's bright and revolting and everyone will know it instantly.

"Perhaps it's because you are unprofessional," Sai says with so much certainty that Sakura would have laughed if she wasn't busy being mortified by the stares. She doesn't know if they think of her as Kizashi's girl or Mebuki's. And she can't tell which is worse.

"What!? Unprofessional my ass! I'm the best shinobi there is!" Naruto proclaims loudly, zealous as ever. Sakura's skin crawls with something heated, and it grows exponentially with every turn of someone's head. She feels their eyes sizing them up and down, and notes the looks of disapproval, fear, anger. They're talking about the war. About fucked up shinobi that kill before they protect. "I'm Naruto Uzu—"

Sakura smacks Naruto's bowl of ramen in his face and she almost wishes the porcelain cracked on it too. "Will you shut up?!" She hisses, shifting uncomfortably. She hears Ino choke on her ramen from the side, before she starts to giggle. Sakura whispers again, unrelenting. "Sensei just probably knows you'd sloppily compromise a mission or other teammates if it came to Hinata or something," She huffs, watching the bowl slide off his face with a _clang_ while wet noodles slip off his dumbfounded expression. "Sai's right, you **are** unprofessional."

Naruto licks the side of his chin, slurping a loose noodle into his mouth before wiping broth off with his sleeve. "Oh please!" He growls. "Like Sai and Ino wouldn't do that for each other too." He pouts, before accusingly pointing his finger at Sakura. "And you owe me another bowl of ramen!" Sakura scoffs.

"We would," Sai agrees with a nod. "But we have more…" He searches for the words with a single finger to his chin, and Sakura almost needs to hold back a smile because she _knows_ he picked up that mannerism from Ino. "...discretion about the matter."

"Yeah, exactly," Ino agrees with a haughty smirk. "Kind of helps to not be an overly passionate blockhead that blurts everything that comes to mind sometimes."

Naruto whines. "Aw, c'mon! I'm not _that_ bad."

"Beautiful," Sai calls to get Ino's attention, holding the last clump of ramen in their bowl between chopsticks. He leans the piece forward towards her lips.

"I mean, just look at that!" Naruto exclaims, his hand gesturing out as Sai feeds his girlfriend.

Sakura sighs, tries to force the tension of nearby people away. _They probably don't even remember,_ she reasons. No one ever does.

"Just leave it alone, Naruto." She turns her head to face the man she's come to look upon as her brother. Adopted, of course—different parents. "She's pregnant anyway, it's not like she's even able to go with you right now."

Naruto grumbles under his breath, arms crossed in defiance. "Yeah, whatever."

"Well, now that we have the whole market staring at us, and Naruto is thoroughly coated in ramen, how about we head to the training grounds?" Ino asks with a smile. "I want to hear more about your job, Sakura. You two are free, right?"

"I'll take a raincheck," Sakura says before she finishes her glass of water with two last gulps. "I have a shift coming up in thirty minutes." And she needs to get the hell out of this district.

"Damn." Ino snaps her fingers. "Forgot you're on nights this week."

They pay for their meals, Sakura taking it upon herself to pay for one of Naruto's seven bowls of ramen. Naruto thanks her with a wide grin.

"I'll see you two around. We'll figure out plans soon, I want to finish that conversation." Sakura promises with a nod of her head to Ino and Sai.

"And me too!" Naruto says with a sunny, boyish smile. Sakura takes a short pause to admire how he managed to maintain that youthful expression despite how they've all aged.

"And you too." She smiles.

* * *

 **A/N:** Just wanted to thank those of you who reviewed, favorited, and followed, it really means the world to me to have my piece be even marginally well received and each comment felt like a blessing. I think there's a lot of works out there that don't do justice to what trauma really looks and feels like and I just hope I can pay homage to it with this one. (Along with restoration. That's important too.) Also, yes, there are OCs but they're mostly negligible and mostly used for support, so you don't have to worry about crappy characters you don't care for taking up too much screen time.

You've also probably noticed that there's going to be some explorations of Sakura's home life and it's going to make a lot of heavy suggestions about what's to come, why Sakura is the way she is, and her connections to Sasuke. I hope you're as excited about it as I am because I'm a slut for the mesh of psychology and spiritual/metaphysical concepts.

Enjoy the chapter!


	5. Honorable Mentions

"Mama...aren't you going to eat?" She asks, peering into her okaasan's room. She had made tonight's dinner just for her, a light miso soup, because her kaasan isn't sick in the body but she is still sick. Sakura may be young, but she knows this at least.

The room is blanketed in a thick dark, and it suffocates her. Mebuki doesn't move—a cold statue buried under soft sheets. For a moment, she is taken by the thought that her okaasan is dead, that it's been days since she ate and now she must have starved to death. The walls of the doorway shrink in and her small hands shake, spilling hot broth.

But then there's a gentle shift of covers, indicating her mother chooses not to feign sleep nor death. Her voice pierces the quiet with a chill of its own. "I thought I taught you to knock before entering someone's room."

"...I'm sorry." It's all Sakura can think to say. The room's darkness is sitting in her lungs and Sakura wonders how her mother isn't gasping to breathe when her bedroom is stuffy with this deadly atrophy. "Okaasan, you should eat something. You'll feel better."

Mebuki sighs, sounding bored and annoyed and _so_ tired. "Please, Sakura. _Please_." The words come out hideously vulnerable, like a clogged pipe that's just been punctured, spewing every old and unwanted regret she's every had. "Just leave me alone."

.

.

.

Sakura shivers herself awake. She sits up, breath uneven, and head pounding. The heavy ache in her chest promises to swallow her, weighted with memory _—_ the afterimage of a lonely woman carved into the back of her daughter's eyelids.

Sakura kicks off the blankets and throws on shorts and a jacket. Then she's sprinting through Konoha's streets, bare feet slap against cold cobblestone. She feels her—a desperation between kin, the pungent smell of rot. Only Sakura can't numb it with a cool exterior like her okaasan. She didn't know how. Not right now. Not this late. Not after that dream where all she feels is her okaasan alive but surely dead.

Her breastbone sinks in on itself as she gasps, breaths leaving harsh like her every step is a punch to the gut. It's late, and no one is here. The sky is maddeningly black and Sakura feels red.

Her feet finally meet gravel, and Sakura stills. The thrumming against her chest is just the slightest and she struggles to catch her breath. She wants to run right to the tombstone, but they can't both be desperate. She has to be composed to care for her okaasan. She has to be gentle. She has to be _not Sakura_ , if only for this.

She makes slow strides, her eyes fixed on a single grave. The night air is cold and frigid in Konoha's civilian cemetery, but the heat of Sakura's heart keeps her warm. Then she's standing before a grave and she lowers onto her knees without a thought of intention. Her eyes sticks to the name like old, grimed adhesive.

 _Mebuki Haruno_

She stares, and stares until the letters lose meaning, until it all blurs to one inside her moistening vision. She wants to be still, to offer consoling words to her okaasan, because she looked so alone during her last days, like a dethroned King waiting for his own axe to come down. And Sakura doesn't know what to do. What could she do? She was the one who gave the death sentence.

 _Sweet, sweet child,_ Mebuki would say, although Sakura is anything but.

"Mama," her voice cracks, and the tears pool down her cheeks. She jerks forward, embraces the headstone and it's so rough and cold that she shivers. Still, Sakura rubs her cheek against the concrete, scraping tender flesh. "Mama...I'm so sorry." She isn't sure which mistake she's apologizing for. There is just too many to count, and she can't take any of them back. Her okaasan is dead _—_ had left the world years ago.

She cries quietly, then not so quietly. When her throat is raw, and her sobs turn to whimpers, she murmurs half-hearted I love yous and praises because her mother wasn't good but she tried more than Sakura ever even thought to. And Sakura thinks nothing can cleanse her of that shame.

She kisses the headstone, the cement hard and callous against her lips. She tries to smile at the letters, tries to envision a place where she can feel connected to them. Feel connected and still feel good about it. The smile never quite comes.

"I think you'd be proud," she mumbles. "I'm finally staying away… from _that damned Uchiha_ like you wanted." She laughs bitterly, and her heart aches with love lost. The sound is hollow, makes her feel like a pitiful thing.

Then it dies in her throat, and the somber engulfs her with the cold. "It should've been for you instead," Sakura confesses. "You would have appreciated it a lot more than he did." She tries to recreate the memory, tracing the image of a sad, sad woman. It's true her okaasan was lost, but not as lost as Sasuke. Sakura wants to believe. "At least, I hope you would have."

Sakura quiets then, letting the crickets play their nightly melody undisturbed. A wind tugs at her dulled pink tresses, and the wetness on her cheeks leaves the cold biting down on her harsher than before. She curls into herself and clenches her teeth, shivering. She stays there despite craving the comfort of her blankets—a poor attempt for penance.

And when Sakura finally leaves, she finds the ground colder against her heel than when she came.

* * *

There are a lot of perks that comes with working in the same building as your best friend. Sakura can easily rapture in the experience of watching a manic patient try to leave against medical advice with her friend, or even be given a helping hand when there is an issue between staff. Avoiding social interaction is not one of these perks.

"Oh, no you don't, forehead!" Ino calls from across the hall, "I'll beat your ass inside out if you don't wait for me! I know you didn't forget about our plans!"

Sakura's heel teeters in step, and Sakura finds she's just too _tired._ She can't fight it. "Pig," Sakura sighs, turns on her heel to meet Ino through sluggish steps.

Ino frowns and Sakura thinks the exhaustion must show more than she'd like. "And here I let you off the hook the other day thinking you'd be better rested. You look like shit, Sakura. What happened?"

Sakura shakes her head. "Nothing. Just a nightmare. " She watches Ino's frown deepen, and her eyes soften, almost looking guilty, as if she was the one who cursed Sakura with a half-life. "No. Nothing too bad, I..." Sakura murmurs. "I just—I kind of ended up visiting cemetery last night."

But this bit of information doesn't seem to make it better. Ino looks startled, then adjusts, and sighs. "Well, if I wasn't worried about you before, I definitely am now." Sakura winces, crossing her arms. "Wait for me. I have one quick check up and then I sign out. We won't go anywhere, we'll just hang out at your place. We don't even have to invite Naruto or Sai. It's just that it's been like a week and I really miss you."

Sakura is certain Ino is just trying to check in on her, a compulsive habit that started between teams and friends since Tenten's first suicide attempt. Sakura doesn't really care though. She misses Ino too. A somber smile stretches over her skin and Ino's smile in response is brilliant. "Is that okay?" Ino asks.

Sakura nods. "Yeah," she agrees. "That's okay. I'll wait for you."

Sakura is relieved to find Ino does as promised, making quick work of her last patient before heading to her apartment with her. She's almost in envy too, because no matter what she's assigned or when, Sakura never seems to get out on time.

They make it back to Sakura's apartment in haste, and situate themselves comfortably. Despite her lack of sleep, Sakura feels strangely rejuvenated in the presence of her favorite kunoichi. Ino's chatter is unusually healing, if only for the moment. She brings out a piece of youth that Sakura perpetually forgets.

"It's like November, Ino. How are you eating that thing?" Sakura asks, carving nonsensically into her headboard with a kunai. She was inspired after seeing the designs Sai had created in Ino's own headboard in their new apartment. Sakura is hardly an artist, but she likes to carve into the thick wood when she is meditating on something she can't quite correct. Or when she is trying to fight the urge to mutilate herself.

There's a sharp suction sound as Ino releases the popsicle from her lips. "I'm trying to practice giving blowjobs. I still can't completely take Sai in my mouth."

Sakura scoffs. "How is that even possible?" She places the kunai down and looks back at the book she should be reading. "You've been sucking dick since you were like 14."

"I wasn't lying when I said he was big, Sakura. Literally like the biggest I've ever seen."

Sakura looks up and narrows her eyes incredulously. "How big are we talking?" She almost instantly regrets asking, certain she's breaching a sense of privacy she should probably maintain. Sai is her teammate.

But it's _Ino,_ and she's already sliding the popsicle back into her mouth with that knowing dangerous, cheshire smile and all reservations fly out the window. She makes a motion with her hands, gesturing his size, eyes all too playful and enthusiastic.

"Geez. I guess that's why he always talks about penises all the time. I almost feel bad for your cooch."

The popsicle _plops_ back out of her mouth and Ino smirks. "Don't."

Sakura snorts. "You're such a slut." She looks back at her book, her smile widening. "I love it."

"Me too," Ino hums.

Her heart flutters, and Sakura suddenly takes note of the shadows coming from the window. She doesn't want to be alone. She's not ready, not just yet. "I think I'm feeling better, by the way. We can call Sai and Naruto, if you want." Sakura looks at her clock. "If it's not too late."

"Like they care." Ino says. "Y'know, I didn't expect you to change your mind," Ino looks at her quizzically for a moment, before she shrugs casually and inspects her barely there popsicle. "But then again, thinking about dick usually rejuvenates me too."

Sakura felt a soft giggle take her, though she choses not to respond. "I'll send them a summon. I hope Hinata doesn't mind me stealing Naruto this late. But I really want to hear the details about your mission." Sakura says. She makes quick work, summoning two slugs before sending them on their way to find Sai and Naruto. Ino goes to unlock Sakura's entrance, finishing her dessert before returning to the bedroom.

"I'm kind of surprised you're inviting Naruto over." Ino sits at the edge of Sakura's bed, studies her nails in that way she always does when she pretends like she's not keenly observing someone. "I thought he's been bugging you about Sasuke?"

"He has." Agitation frosts her words, and Sakura doesn't particularly care to hide it. "Brings him up literally _every_ time I'm alone with him." Sakura forces a breath, and leans back, mellowing out into the mattress. "But I know he won't mention it with you two around. He can be an insensitive idiot, but he doesn't strive for it."

"What exactly _is_ your position towards Sasuke?" Ino asks. "Do you hate him now or something?" There's a pause, and Sakura can feel a dull pain by her ribs, her throat. Sakura regrets being expressive these days, even with Ino, she's coming to realize. She just needs some space. Space from everything. "Does this have anything to do with your mom?"

Sakura narrows her eyes, and it almost feels like a hammer came right down on her head, knocking the worst of aches into her skull. She doesn't like that question. She _hates_ that question. "I don't know, does it matter?"

Ino frowns sympathetically and Sakura has to look away. She hates the pity, too. "Doesn't it?"

"No," Sakura snaps. "It doesn't."

"Sakura." A gentle reprimand. More gentle than she deserves, but Ino has always been like that when it comes to her.

They hear the distant screech of a door opening then, and Sakura could sob at the pure relief of interruption. "Sakura-chan! I brought some ramen for you!" She hears his footsteps draw closer before there's a light echo of someone tapping on thick glass. Ino nearly leaps to the window, drawing the pane sideways for Sai to crawl through.

"Beautiful," Sai greets, and Sakura watches him flash Ino a smile that can only be described as sweet. But then he's pulling her into a kiss—an irrefutably passionate one. Sakura would think it to be inappropriate (espcially when she sees Sai's tongue slither out) if she wasn't completely fascinated by the image. The intimacy is too entrancing, too sensual—reminding her of a softness she sometimes is certain the world forgot. Sai's hands cradle Ino's waist, and there's a wanton calm in her best friend's expression when she cups the sides of his face. Sakura is warmed by the heat of their love.

"Ugh! What the hell!?" Naruto does not share the sentiment. "Get a room, you two!"

There's the wet smack of two lovers lips parting. "I believe we are in one, Dickless."

"That's not what that means, you pervert!" Naruto scowls dramatically.

Sakura changes the subject for Ino's sake, because she looks much too breathless and dizzy to give Naruto a witty response. "You were at Ichiraku?" She eyes Naruto's gourmet bowls of ramen to enunciate her words.

"Yeah, of course!" Naruto says, his smile beaming. "And I brought you some ramen!"

"It's like 10 o' clock, aren't they closed?" Ino asks, having reigned in her senses. Still, there is no denying the slight flush of her cheeks. But nobody comments on this, even as Sakura sees Sai silently marveling at it.

"He's friends with the owner," Sakura responds, before directing a half-hearted scowl at her idiot teammate. "Who happens to have a family, y'know. You can't just hold people up at work like that because of your stomach. It's rude, Naruto."

"Aw, Teuchi doesn't mind!" Naruto says, placing a hot container in front of Sakura. "C'mon, eat up!"

Sakura swallows hard as the scent fills her nostrils. Her stomach tightens in rebellion. "I'm not hungry, I already ate."

"No you didn't," Ino responds as she fishes through one of Sakura's drawers. Sakura grimaces at how Ino so carelessly exposes her. She would chuck the book in her lap at the kunoichi if the action itself wasn't staunchly incriminating.

"I'll eat," Sai says, oblivious to the overbearing blonde's antics. "I'm very hungry."

"It's not for you!" Naruto snaps. He then eyes Ino, who was relocating a distinct smelling herb from a grinder into one of Sakura's ceramic bowls. "Oi! What are you doing!? You can't smoke that in here, Hinata's pregnant!"

Sakura quirks a brow. "What does that have to do with anything?" She asks before handing the bowl of ramen to Sai, taking advantage of Naruto's distraction.

"If I come home smelling like that and then Hinata smells me, our baby will be retarded!"

Sakura scowls. "Can we please not use the word retarded?" Sakura chides. "It's medically incorrect."

"It's already going to be retarded if you're its father," Ino retorts.

 _"Pig."_ Sakura reprimands. Ino flashes her an apologetic smile before turning out the window. There's a stark _flick_ that snaps through the room as she turns on her lighter.

"Hinata-san is rather intelligent," Sai says, grabbing chopsticks to indulge in the bowl of ramen. "It's possible their child's intelligence will be perfectly average with both of their genes."

"My kid is going to be a genius!" Naruto claims boldly, "Hinata and me are the smartest people in this village besides Shikamaru!"

"Hinata and _I_ ," Sai corrects with an expression that borders smug.

"None of you know a damn thing about genetics," Sakura says, she shakes her head in mock disapproval as she closes her book. She's obviously not going to get much reading done with their company. "Don't you remember punnett squares?" She asks, and she considers that she might be falling into her snobbish know-it-all habits, but this is such _basic_ science. "And intelligence isn't cut and dry like that, there's several different types of it." This fact is just too obvious. "You can't just measure it linearly like that."

"Punnet what-now?" Naruto asks, slurping on his own bowl of ramen next to Sai.

"Beautiful?" Sai calls. "Are you alright?"

They're eyes flash to Ino then, who is gazing out the window, eyes focused and brows furrowed on something outside. Sakura reflexively reaches for the kunai she had not too long ago. But Ino looks over at her boyfriend. "Huh? Oh, yeah. I thought I just…" Ino looks over at Naruto, then Sakura. "Yeah no—nevermind, I'm being crazy."

"Wait, what is it?" Sakura asks, persistent.

"Nothing, this weed just smells funny." Ino dismisses. Sakura scoffs in response and eyes her with suspicion. But Ino just shrugs, continues on undeterred, flickering a light and exhaling out the window.

Sai's frown is barely there, before it's masked entirely. "Don't worry, Ugly. Ino knows a great dealer. We will help." Evidently, he's chosen to help Ino conceal whatever it is she's hiding.

Sakura huffs, relaxing her hold on the kunai before completely letting go. Ino wouldn't have taken a hit if it were something serious. Still, Sakura can't quite dispel the agitation as quickly as she'd like. Selfish and one-sided as it is, she hates it when Ino keeps secrets. "I'm pretty sure she uses Kiba like I do."

Naruto nearly chokes on his ramen. He coughs, beating his chest with a fist. "What! Kiba deals!?"

"Are you really that surprised?" Ino asks, nonchalant. She looks over at Sai. "Do you want a hit, babe?"

"That's alright, Beautiful. Enjoy yourself." Sai turns over to Sakura then. "Ugly, your mission?" He asks, watching her with calm intent, even as he eats. Sakura is thankful he's far away enough for her not to smell it.

She describes the details of what was gathered about the bandit, ending with the mention of how the body was erradicated from a self inflicted blast. "She probably doesn't work alone," Sakura concludes. "As for the team we retrieved, it had a Hyuga on it. He was young, but I mean…" Sakura sees pearly eyes stricken with panic, the skin around his eyes creased with a lost innocence. "A four cell team shouldn't have been that injured from a single nin. Not with a Hyuga, and two jounin—one of which died. And then the chunin had their legs blown off. The Hyuga was missing a hand." She repeats the knowledge easy, blocking out the image. It didn't matter she's a medic. She'll never fully swallow the images of mutilation.

"The fourth?" Sai asks.

"Unscathed from what I saw. He was the one who escaped—part of our retrieval team. I would assume he got medical attention before he was sent with us again," Sakura says, before mulling over their last conversation. "But it's hard to say for sure." Because nins with kekkei genkai get priority.

" _Unscathed?_ " Naruto says then, face stricken with insult. "And he just left his team like that?"

A frown drags across her lips. "It's protocal, Naruto," Sakura says and feels guilty for even saying it, as if it is a reasonable excuse. "Trust me, he didn't feel good about it," she sighs, recalling his agitation. "Not everyone can improvise in the face of death, sometimes people just don't know what else to do but follow the rules." She knows he's thinking of Kakashi, their first lessons. _Scum._ Sakura is too. But Sakura sometimes wishes those words didn't resonate so deeply. Maybe she could've saved herself the heartache.

" _Wow_ this is way too heavy for me right now," Ino coughs, before placing the paraphernalia aside. Despite her words, she pushes the conversation forward. "So who lead the rescue team?"

"Enra," Sakura responds and Ino looks at her quizzically. "I think she was a part of Root."

"She was," Sai says, nodding in confirmation. "I remember her."

"Never heard of her," Ino says, before resting her chin on her palm. "But if it's a former Root member, then Kakashi must have wanted someone skilled in reconnaissance."

"Exactly," Sakura affirms. "He already knew."

"Our mission wasn't a retrieval one, but I think we were dealing with someone affiliated with your bandit." Sai says.

"Where was your mission?" Ino asks.

"Mine was by the border of Tani and Konoha," Sakura answers.

"That's close," Sai observes. "Ours was in Suna."

"So there was bandits in Suna too?" Naruto asks. "Gaara never mentioned anything, and I was just there like a month ago."

"You'll probably hear about it if it becomes more serious," Sakura reasons, before turning to look at Ino's glazed eyes. "How strong were they?" She asks. "Did they use explosives too?"

"We only fought two," Sai answers. "They were very powerful nin, but they did not use explosives. One used water release. The other I'm still not sure. She used a wide variety of jutsus. And also escaped."

"And fucking burned the body of her own comrade when we incapacitated him," Ino inserts, voice accentuating her repulsion.

Naruto chokes on his ramen. "What the fuck!" He cries, appalled. "Why the hell didn't she just take him with her?"

"She probably didn't want to be slowed down when she escaped," Sai reasons. "We were told to do the same in Root—if we could."

Naruto mumbles about a lack of ethics before clearing his throat and Sakura can't help but agree with a sickening twist of her stomach. Danzo's methods were vial.

"You smokin'?" Ino asks, eyes trained on Sakura as she signaled the end of the conversation. Sakura nods, hopeful the discussion wouldn't incite paranoia but also hopelessly eager to relax. Ino hands her the bowl. "Sai, can you go grab us a glass of water?"

"Of course, Beautiful."

"Oh wait, wait!" Naruto exclaims, before vacuuming the last of his ramen into his mouth. He then holds several empty bowls out, and speaks while chewing. "Throw this out too!"

Sakura shakes her head and flicks the lighter. It's been some time, and her throat is agitated with the first inhale. But then she's blowing out, coughing gently out her window, and her head is feeling comfortably loose. Throat burning or not, Sakura finds the anything is worth the lightness.

"Hey, Naruto, does Hinata ever smoke?" Ino asks curiously then.

Naruto makes a face that dared to question Ino's intelligence. Sakura almost laughs. "She doesn't even drink."

Sakura coughs out a bit of smoke, before placing her hand over her mouth as she looks over at Naruto. "Really?"

"Well, I'm not surprised, but I am kind of disappointed," Ino says with a sly smile. "Kind of want to know what she's like stoned."

"Well, _I'm_ surprised," Sakura says.

Ino laughs, and the giggling goes on just for a bit longer than it normally would. "How?" Ino asks, her eyes sparkling. "It's _Hinata_. That girl is a fucking angel."

"Yeah, I'm kind of with Ino, here. I thought you were the smart one, Sakura-chan," Naruto says with genuine bewilderment to her stupidity. Sakura rolls her eyes.

"She's a shinobi," Sakura counters. "I couldn't deal with this lifestyle _and_ your annoying ass if I was sober 24-7."

"Hey!" Naruto crosses his arms and turning his head in defiance. "Unlike _some_ people, Hinata-chan actually enjoys my company!"

"I sure hope so, she's about to have two of you to babysit," Ino says with a playful smile.

"I know," Naruto responds dreamily. Sakura chuckles, her head wafting in the joy of inebriation and Naruto's expression. "I can't wait."

Sai comes in then with two glasses of water, and places one in Ino's hand. Ino takes a few gulps before passing the glass to Sakura to drink. "Hey forehead," she says. "You're the only one in this room here who's still single. What's up with that?" She asks. Sakura is sure she would be more embarrassed to have Ino initiate this conversation, especially with the other two nin around, but she's already taking another hit as she ponders the question evenly.

"Yeah, seriously!" Naruto is quick to add. "I mean, I knew it was kind of a sore spot for you before," there's a pause and she knows _because of Sasuke_ goes unspoken. "But what about now?" Naruto asks. "It's not like you're waiting anymore. Why do you keep turning down guys?"

"I don't know. It just never felt right." Sakura stares at the glass in her hand, more fascinated by the distortion of light. "I don't want to waste time."

"Are you attracted to girls?" Sai asks, before possessively snaking his arm around Ino's hips then.

"No," Sakura says, eyeing his protective gesture. "But if I was, I'll have you know you wouldn't stand a chance," she quips. Sai engages her in a silent match, his features twisting slightly in comparison to their usual blankness while her glare is exaggerated. Sakura hears Ino laugh nervously at their bold display.

"Sakura-chan," Her bed creaks as Naruto lays back on it comfortably. "I think the next time a guy asks you out, you should give him a chance." He stares up at her ceiling with a solemn expression, and Sakura finds herself marginally unsettled by it. "I mean, I was really hooked on you for a long time. But when Hinata came...I don't know. It's not like I expected much out of it, but the more I got to know her, I just…" Naruto locks eyes with her then, and she feels her heart speed up at the intensity of what he's seeing, what he's feeling when he speaks to her. "Everything changed."

"Dickless is right." Sai says, gentle. "I was unsure of my feelings for Beautiful as well. But I can truly say it's been most fortuitous I have her now."

"Yeah, Forehead," Ino agrees then, taking the bowl from Sakura and settling herself by the window. "Love is beautiful. You should give the world a chance." She lights the bowl, inhales then exhales, and Sakura feels herself doing the same. "And I want to hear about your sex life already." She coughs, a sly grin plastered onto her face. "It gets old just bragging about mine sometimes. I mean, not really, because mine is just that awesome, but you know." Their smiling eyes connect and Ino winks at her.

"Please stop talking," Naruto groans. Sakura chuckles at that, and then she sees Naruto smiling at her, like he's been bathed in sunshine. "But honestly, Sakura-chan, just let life surprise you! Take a risk!"

Sakura wrings her hands in her lap, a nervous smile creeping on her lips. For a moment, she tries to picture having a love different than the one she knows. One she wished her parents had, one she wasn't really sure existed until she had heard Tsunade talk about Dan. "I'll think about it," she decides.

"Atta gurl!" Ino says, slapping Sakura's shoulder none too gently. "Now, time to head home! I'm way too stoned to _not_ be having a mind blowing orgasm right now!" Ino says, placing her hands on her hips, smiling confidently.

"I agree," Sai says offhandedly, though his eyes glint with something mischievous.

"Wh-what the hell!" Naruto half shouts, flustered with pink cheeks. But Sakura finds herself cackling—high pitched and bordering unnatural.

"Thank you for inviting us, Ugly. We will see you both soon." Sai lifts Ino into his arms and leaves in unveiled haste.

"Those two…" Naruto grumbles.

* * *

 **A/N:** Much lighter chapter this time, as is to be expected when you have these muskrats in a room together. I'm honestly not crazy about this one, and it took way too long for me to update because of shitty life complications. But I'll try to make up for that by having a new chapter next week.


	6. Paper Invitations and Stockholm Syndrome

Sakura is disappointed but unsurprised to find her optimism leaves with her high. The disappointment heightens when she has another nightmare of Sasuke the following night. It starts with Sasuke pressing kisses between her naked breasts and ends with him fucking her with a kunai, laughing. _Is this what you had in mind?_

Sakura is thankful that the hospital is in perpetual need of medics because sleep has never sounded so unappealing after that.

But she can only evade her body's needs for so long. Exhausted, she spends the morning of her first day off in weeks the way her mother often did: In bed, buried under her covers. She doesn't dream but she has visions—visions of a sleek black veiling her.

She sees worms crawling through the corpses of lions. She sees elephants, huddled in a circle, mourning their dead. She sees a white-blue light, coursing through her and into another. His hair is long and his eyes are tired slits, underlined with an azure calm. His tomoe cycle, pupils dilate. She feels the brush of his lips against hers, pleading,

 _Stay._

Sakura consciousness barely comes and she's sticky with sweat and worn with fatigue. Her throat is yearning for something cool and wet. But in the midst of her half-asleep state, she finds she's too tired to care. She's wasted all her energy on fantasy—wondering if she can sleep away the feeling of being wrapped in his snakeskin. Or maybe she can dream her mother's lament into another place. A place where it can't coat her tongue or ooze from her nail beds, staining all she tastes, all she touches.

It's only as the blankets are violently pulled off from her that she wakes with a gasp, the stuffy heat that has cocooned her replacing with unwanted clarity. She looks up at bright, cerulean eyes, Naruto's tan features handsome as ever.

"Sakura-chan?" he asks, cautious. "Are you okay?"

Sakura groans, lazily sitting up. Her mouth is dry, and her hands are pale in front of her face. She's clad in nothing but a loose top and knickers, but she feels so sullied and smothered in hot smog that she wishes it was even less. She needs a shower. Or ten.

"I've been calling your name for like half an hour," Naruto grumbles, annoyed. The rasp of his voice is sandpaper on her ears. He places a hand on her forehead. It's warm and dry against her skin and she feels nauseous. She would move it away if she had the energy. "Are you sick?"

Sakura shakes her head, her movements slight, weighed down with the pressure of his hand and her dysphoria. "No, just really dehydrated." It's more than that, she knows. And she knows that he knows too.

Naruto drops his hand. "We were supposed to train together."

"Oh. Fuck." Sakura mutters. "What time is it?"

"Like 4."

"Pm!?" Her voice is hoarse and she groans. "Ugh. So much for making use of my day off." She reaches for a bottle of water she keeps by her bed. The liquid is lukewarm with an unpleasant aftertaste, but it doesn't deter her from chugging it down.

"You never oversleep like this. What's going on?" Naruto asks. His pout is petulant, but that look in his eyes contrasts a startling maturity. "I swear, you and the teme." And Sakura cringes. She never wants to be paired with him. "I don't know what's gotten into him, he's practically falling asleep in the middle of training lately. He must have insomnia or something."

Sakura can't help it, she snorts mockingly on reflex. "Sasuke half assing his training? Guess there's a first time for everything."

"Sakura-chan." Naruto reprimands.

"I know," Sakura says quickly. "I'm sorry." Her voice is soft, and the feeling genuine. But the sincerity gets lost in translation. She is just too tired.

There's a pause and she chances a glimpse of Naruto's face. His expression is rigid. "He's cutting again."

Sakura violently flinches, as if she just took a punch to the gut. And she thinks she would have preferred one than those words. She tries to rectify her spill of emotion, eyes falling past the window while she cloaks herself with a cold veneer.

"He was always cutting," she says. She ignores the heaviness dragging her head to her heart and her heart past her crooked floorboards. "For all we know, he never stopped."

"He did," Naruto promises. "His wrist was clean when he first came back. I saw. He wasn't wearing anything to cover it. He started up again."

She doesn't want to talk about this. _Anything_ but this. "We're shinobi. Everyone cuts."

"You didn't say that when you found out I did it. Ino either."

The corners of her mouth pinches. "That's different."

His voice is accusing, and the narrowing of his eyes even moreso. "How?" He asks. "How is it _any_ different?"

"You _know_ how," Sakura bites out, undeterred, meeting his glare with one of her own. Her head is spinning.

"This isn't you, Sakura-chan," Naruto says with a certainty that makes her sick. His hands ball into fists. "I know you care about him. So quit acting like you don't."

"I'm not _acting_ like anything." She tries to regain her composure because she knows she doesn't even look the part. Her hands are trembling.

"Bull shit!"

She makes a noise, something between a moan and a growl. "Everyone's fucked up. We're _all_ hurting. Sasuke isn't special." And a voice in her head laughs mockingly at the lie. But she perseveres. "Why should he get a pity party?"

"Because he's _our_ teammate," Naruto grounds out. "And at one point, it wasn't just me who seemed to care about that!"

Sakura rolls her eyes, fights the urge to defenestrate him with her clenched fist. Maybe she didn't do as much as him for Sasuke, but she did more than enough to warrant a lifetime of reprieve from everything Uchiha.

"Just stop, Naruto," Her voice comes out smaller than she wants it to. "Why do you have to bring him up when you're with me?" She wraps her arms around herself. Her hands are clammy, head sore. She imagines she's blue in the face. Her mother was too, when she had found her dead on the bedroom floor, lying in her vomit. Sakura just wants to sleep. "Gods, you can be so damn inconsiderate sometimes."

" _I'm_ being inconsiderate?" Naruto bites out, challenging. Fury surges through her.

"Yes, Naruto!" Sakura shrieks, voice shrill. "You're making it about him! You _always_ make it about _him!_ "

"Well someone has to, you sure as hell don't!" His chakra springs out, scalds her. There's a white-hot ringing in her ears _._ Sakura is surprised she's not vomiting. She wants to. She wants to be purge _all_ of it.

"Why the fuck should I? What has he ever done for me?!" Sakura cries, battling the noise inside. Her head is pounding.

"He'd do a lot if you actually gave him the chance to!" Naruto is shaking and Sakura feels sorry. But then something in his face changes, like someone has blown out a candle. He closes his eyes and exhales deeply. His chakra ebbs, his features soften. And she thinks this must certainly be a divine punishment—watching Naruto shed off his turbulence better than she could ever hope to.

"He's _trying_ , Sakura-chan," his voice is pleading, soft. And Sakura's heart aches for him, but it's also soaked in a crimson that isn't her own. "Sasuke finally _wants_ to be happy. But he needs us. We're the only family he's got and he needs us. Needs _you_. But you…" His eyes are hurt and confused. They condemn her. "You don't even want to be in the same damn room as him!"

"Because I **can't be** , Naruto. Why the fuck can't you understand that!?" Sakura clutches at her head, nails scraping. Her tear ducts ache.

"Yes, you can!" Naruto groans. "Sakura-chan, if this were anyone else, _anyone_ , I would've let it go by now." Sakura nearly howls in laughter, ever special in the ways nobody wants to be. "But you're Team 7! And so is he! And shit, you just need to _talk_ to him already, dammit! It'll be better when you two just talk—I know it!"

"It's not that easy, okay!?" She blurts out, voice strangled.

He looked at her with those big, blue pleading eyes and Sakura feels _so_ sick. "Did you really help me chase after him for years just to ignore him?" His voice is so gentle, it's unnerving. She looks away, wishing someone on this nightmare team knew how to let things go. "He's suffering and—"

" _I'm_ suffering!" Sakura screams and the ringing in her ears is like red circles against her temple. "And maybe I'm not some long lost spiritual brother of yours, but I'm your friend too! And the least you could do is fucking respect my grieving!"

"Grieving _what_!?" Naruto is exhausted, eyes rolling as he throws his hands up in the air. She wants so bad to smack him right through the wall then and it takes every bit of her self control not to.

"Grieving the fact that I was obsessed with a selfish man that took _everything_ we gave him and threw it right back in our faces!" And she knows. She knows these words aren't her own. But they're words she's heard a million times and what else was left to do but believe them?

"If that were true, he wouldn't be in Konoha right now!" Naruto growls. "Sakura, you're being so unfair to him, this—this isn't like you! You never used to talk about Sasuke like this! You understood his hurt!" Sakura feels her teeth clench, because she still _does_ understand. And that's exactly why she is so **afraid.** "And teme—teme would do anything for you. The bastard loves you!"

Sakura feels her mind splinter. " _Love_ s me?" Her voice is bathed in vitriol and accusation.

"He tried to **kill** me! He put me under a genjutsu where he actually _did_ fucking kill me." If she applies any more pressure to her grip, her bloody nails will push right past her cranium. But maybe that will stop her horrible headache. She wants to scream.

"I see his—his _fucking_ chidori in my chest," Sakura looks directly into his eyes, and she holds _him_ captive this time. "I even see _you_ , Naruto!—my best friend—Dead! Dead because our ex-teammate had the longest fucking psychotic break since Madara fucking Uchiha!" Now she _is_ screaming. "And just like his bat-shit incarnate, he thought it might be good idea to murder his 'best friend' in the most backwards pursuit of peace!" Sakura cries. "Itachi's influence be damned, he should have known better!"

Naruto's eyes don't lose their fierce determination, but his mouth wobbles. She hopes he's being torn open the way she is right now. And she hates herself for that—that despite all her love, she is still so angry at them all. Her cheeks are wet. Her brain is spasming in her skull. "That piece of shit doesn't know a _fucking thing_ about love!"

Naruto is quiet for a moment and Sakura is coiling in the aftermath of her ruptured visage. When he speaks his voice is tentative, carefully craning out of the muck. "How could you say those things?" Sakura is certain she would vomit if she had anything to throw up. "You were with me through **all** of it, Sakura-chan. Every time someone said something about him, you were with me. Because you _know_ teme! You always knew he was good! You were with me, you were with _us_. And now you're making out like he's the bad guy when he's finally _here_ and how—how could you be so—so—rrhhhh!"

Sakura is sobbing, eyes burning because she's too dehydrated to be crying right now. She hates how a part of her agrees—knows Naruto is _right_. That part is furious with her too. But she saw his eyes when a nin from seven years ago raped her, Ino's dead boyfriend still had his smirk, otousan was murdered by a kunoichi that snapped and she found okaasan dead on the bedroom floor.

"I'm so fucking sick of hearing about Sasuke," her voice is a pathetic whimper between her heaves. "Just get the fuck out, Naruto."

* * *

The next day, Sakura is called into the hospital only a few hours after she had just left. "I'm really sorry about this, Sakura, but we're desperate," Tsunade says, the amber of her eyes as dull as Sakura feels. She hasn't slept either.

"You don't have to apologize, shishou. I'm happy to be here," Sakura replies, more tired than she's ever been in her life, but pitifully grateful for the distraction. She gives Tsunade a weak smile while setting the blood sample up under a microscope. Tsunade's hand squeezes her shoulder in thanks.

It isn't rare for sick shinobi and wealthy civilians from other lands to come to Konoha for medical attention, and it's always Tsunade or Sakura tending to them. But it is rare for Tsunade to enlist Sakura on the job because she actually _needs_ the help.

In this case, it's a clan that was targeted. Two shinobi who had been poisoned were transported from Iwa. There are also two other carcasses sent with them, both who had already passed from the same poison's effects. A team of medics, including Shizune, are currently performing an autopsy on a dead woman and—to Sakura's disgust—a dead child.

"It almost looks like blood cells themselves," Sakura notes aloud as she stares under the microscope. "I'm impressed they even identified it as a poison so fast."

"Not fast enough," Tsunade corrects. "A quarter of the clansmen are already dead because of this toxin."

"Wait, _what?_ " Sakura looks at Tsunade, utterly baffled. "How?"

"All we know is that it was in the water supply."

"I thought tensions were low. Who are prospective assailants?" And for a moment, Sakura thinks of the bandits that she previously discussed with her peers. But this clan is located in the crest of Kiri, nowhere near Suna or Tani.

"There's nothing we currently know that can clue us in on the nature of this poison," Tsunade explains. "So just focus on the sample. We'll go over details later." Her shishou's voice is becoming increasingly agitated. Sakura's sure context could help her analysis, but her juvenile need to please is not quite dead yet.

Sakura orders an assistant to prepare several rats and mice for testing, while she takes great pains to carefully extract the poison from samples of infected tissue and blood.

Gentle pats of affection and soothing chakra has the critters effortlessly docile. She's thankful for their cooperation, and the smile she wears is tense and morbid when she injects each of them with a venom that will ultimately result in their deaths. And she can't help but wonder if she'll be this calm when fate sticks a well-deserved syringe in her too.

* * *

She traces the line of a red streak along her wrist with a nimble finger. A pretty scarlet outlined with pink. It has finally stopped bleeding, and she knows that if she applies too much pressure, it will start again. She chooses to be gentle.

Sakura doesn't cut often. She doesn't even like it. There is no euphoric release, no distraction from the red monologue of her life in bringing a blade to skin. She could cut until there was no blood left to spill and she'd still cry only from the heaviness of her heart, not her wounds.

But there is this. The pretty scarlet outlined with pink. It's shallow, and it stings but it reminds her of something that once was, hidden in the crimson. She's sure if she digs the blade deep enough she can cut the remnants of him and her from beneath her skin. So every now and then she tries.

Sometimes it reminds her of the hospital, of shifting the pink and brown and yellow organs around to stitch something up or remove something ugly and black. There's a lot of red there too. Much more red than she sees now. She can almost taste antiseptic and it makes her feel clean.

Sometimes it reminds her of babies, newborns coming out that are grey and pink and very beautiful and very ugly. Their faces are smudged with blood. But their mothers smile at them anyway because they are life and there must be something endearing about that.

Sakura wishes okaasan could have smiled at her like that too. But she doesn't blame her. There was death between her mother's legs instead of birth. Sakura knows because it's genetic—she has death inside of her too. It took her seventeen years to realize it, when a purple-eyed nin spread her open. But the black was always there—nestled in secret.

Sakura winces. Velvet crimson runs down her pale arm, lucid against the opaque blue in her veins. She pressed too hard. Sakura smears it along her skin, trying to erase it. The pain is a sharp pulse inside her wrist, her head. The crickets outside gently chirp.

Sakura hates the red. She does. Because she can never seem to escape it and what's worse is that she isn't always sure she wants to.

Because she loves it too. She loves how the red blends with her clothes and brightens her viridian, compliments it even. She loves the red for its passion—the way it's birthed from vehemence and how it demands to be acknowledged. She loves the way the red of his kaleidoscope eyes entrances her—even as he is about to paint his hands the same color.

Sakura exhales, drags her legs close to form a meditative stance. She's losing it, she knows. Has popped her head like a red balloon. She wasn't mercurial during the war—wasn't allowed to be because everyone around her was wide-eyed and shaking and she was the medic. But it eventually caught up to her too. She is always slow, she knows, when it comes to keeping up with her beloved Team 7. But sure enough, she gets there.

Okaasan told her not to become a shinobi, once. _You'll murder all of us. Just like that Uchiha boy. Is that what you want?_ Tousan said nothing during the conversation. And that alone gave him away. She hates it when her okaasan is right.

Sakura closes her eyes and settles herself upright, using the deformed headboard for support. She tries to picture nothing, breathing the stillness of her room. Her wrist stings.

She wishes Ino could meditate with her because Ino's chakra feels so good. It's cool and inviting, nurturing in a way that was both intimately close and respectfully distant. Kakashi's chakra feels like a watered down version of Ino's, slightly unsettling at times. It carries his chasm of guilt, she found, when she had healed him during the war—his gaze lost somewhere between finding and losing Obito all over again.

Sasuke's chakra felt good at one point too. It was never friendly, but it was fond—protective somehow. Like it was keeping her secret, only Sakura didn't know what that secret was.

But these aren't thoughts Sakura wants to have. She inhales and exhales and stubbornly tries again.

* * *

 **A/N:** As promised, the next chapter. I lucked out with this one, it was so much easier to edit this chapter than the previous drafts. I know we're moving slow, and I apologize for that, but bare with me, I promise it's worth it...(hopefully loolll)

Thanks again for all reviews, favorites, follows! They really mean so much more than you know and they're the only real reason I even bother to share my work. I just want to engage y'all and hear your thoughts.


	7. Glass House

For Sakura, time blurs into a stretch of a mellow trying. Trying to get out of bed, trying to find an antidote in the labs, trying to remember her otousan's words, _Bad dreams are only bad dreams. Nothing more_.

When she opts for soldier pills over breakfast again, a forgotten calendar on her fridge tells her it's been over a month since Sasuke's retun. Sakura supposes people didn't catch on at first because of Sasuke's introverted nature. But soon enough, she starts to hear it everywhere.

His name is whispers in the hospital, the market, and any training ground that holds more than three shinobi. It's always the same when people see her. Faces pop in front of her and start talking to her about him simply, _casually_ , just assuming he's a topic of her interest. Their faces are expectant—like she is supposed to _care_ or something. So Sakura gives them a trained smile and a cordial response, followed by a change in topic. Then they give her a hideous, _knowing_ look. And she thinks she has never felt so naked in front of complete strangers before.

Because she does care. She cares a lot. But it isn't the kind of care that people think and it sure isn't the kind of care she wants to have. It's a care that carries bile—slowly building and oozing through her in a murky vortex of black and red and grief. Sakura knows it is only a matter of time before she's in the center of the spiral, only a matter of time before she snaps.

She tries to prolong it. Sakura grows uncharacteristically antisocial—orders delivery to save trips to the grocery store, wears hoods and hats or even puts on a henge on walks to work, reserves outdoor training for obscure hours of the night. She's pitifully grateful to be cooped up in the hospital's poison analysis division during work. Lab rats don't ask her about past teammates.

And when she enters an empty lab to find a shinobi with a rabbit mask perched on the windowsill, she nearly cries in relief. It can only mean one thing: A mission.

If she can just get a week—just one week, she will be satisfied. She _needs_ to get away from Konoha.

* * *

When Sakura arrives slightly later than expected, she finds herself in a full room. At once, she spots Shikamaru leaning against the wall on her right, with Kiba and Akamaru standing near him. Kaito, the green haired sensor she worked with from the last mission is on her left. Sakura looks straight at Kakashi then, who's peering down at the staple orange book in his hand. Something about this image is wonderfully refreshing, floods her with a hot nostalgia, despite the walls of papers on either side of him.

Kakashi seems to finish a sentence before glancing up at her, eyes crinkling at the corners in welcome. Sakura nods her head in return, "Hokage-sama."

"Shikamaru _and_ Sakura?" Kiba says then, his voice paved with awe. "Damn, this mission must be some serious business." He eyes Sakura with a wide, canine grin, the enthusiasm matched only by Akamaru's thrashing tail thrashing and labored breaths.

Sakura finds her smile is genuine, heated even, like his. "Kiba," Sakura greets with a nod of her head. She looks over at Shikamaru, and can't help but agree.

The genius strategist himself is staring out the window, and she'd expect he's just daydreaming like usual if it weren't for the slight tension in shoulders, suggesting contemplation instead. It takes Shikamaru a moment before he meets her eyes, but when he does he inclines his head respectfully to greet her.

She looks over at Kaito then, and his eyes seem to smile at her more than his mouth before he turns towards Kakashi. "So what's the mission?" His is tone mostly calm, but the slightest undercurrent of eagerness is weaved in.

"We're still waiting on one more," Kakashi says and turns a page. He doesn't even look up.

"A five cell team?" Sakura asks.

Kakashi hums in confirmation and Sakura looks over at her teammates then. A strategist, a sensor, Kiba doubles as a part-offense and part-tracking, and of course, there is her—the medic. This is no doubt a delicate and covert mission. But the next nin will probably be another offense-type—a little insurance in case shit hits the fan.

For a brief moment, Sakura hopes for Naruto. It'll be the perfect excuse to make up with him and maybe his endearing positivity will wedge its way into her sense of perspective. But then she remembers how inexpicably awful he can be where stealth is concerned.

"Looks like he's coming now," Kakashi says, his eyes still pasted to his book.

The next moment, Sakura is rigid. She feels the strong, and all too familiar chakra signature approaching. _Oh gods oh gods._

Then she hears the muffled steps, shinobi sandals tapping just outside the room. Her eyes fix on the windows, the very same white cloud she things Shikamaru has been staring at. Her heart pounds against her chest like it's trying to bust open her rib cage. Sakura registers the heavy creak of the door opening and closing. And then he's _right behind her._

Her mind squeaks and whistles in disorganized panic. Like pieces of broken glass swivelling around in a closed container. Sakura's eyes fasten onto the greyness of the sky and she centers every piece of will to avoid cutting herself on a thought.

Kiba whistles, loud and keen, and it almost combats the creaks in her head. "Well fuck! If it isn't Sasuke Uchiha!" He grins, facing Kakashi. "Now I'm _real_ excited! This is going to be one hell of a mission!" Sakura doesn't dare turn.

"Kakashi." His voice roves over her senses with the greeting. It's vividly deeper than she recalls, though it still carries the same gruff nature he always spoke with and her heart smacks against her rib cage more fiercely because of it. With great difficulty, she retains the mask of her chakra, although the only point of it now is to conceal the uproar in her body.

 _Frontal lobe. Thalamus. Hypothalamus. Pituitary gland. Optic chiasma..._

Kakashi looks past her, eyeing Sasuke in acknowledgement. She wonders if she has even an arm's length of distance from her ex-teammate, or if he could chidori through her head right where she stands. _Stop. **Stop.** He wouldn't do that._ _Infundibulum. Mamillary body. Pons._

Kakashi sits up on his chair and places his book down onto the desk with great care. His eyes flit around the room to survey each shinobi. They linger on Sakura's face for a moment longer than the rest and she wonders if he can see her insides bubbling.

"Let's get started," he addresses. "First, I would just like to inform everyone here that this is an A rank mission. It's going to be some time before you're actually deployed, mainly because we suspect there might be more intel coming in soon, but as of right now, this mission could last anywhere from a week to a month. There's a good chance you'll be selected for a follow up mission right after you come back as well. The only person this doesn't entirely apply to is Sakura," His eyes lock on her now. "I've already spoken with Tsunade about the case you're involved with. We can talk about those details in a bit." Kakashi then looks around the room. "But first, any objections so far?"

"Yes, actually," Sakura is speaking before she can think, and she's utterly impressed with how calm she sounds. "If it's alright, may I have a word, Hokage-sama?"

Kakashi looks almost as if he expected this, but it's hard to tell. He nods in acknowledgement. "Would the rest of you wait outside for a moment?"

There's a tense pause, and Shikamaru is the first to move, pushing off the wall and letting out an exasperated sigh. Sakura would feel bad if she didn't think he always sounded tired since his father died. "Dammit, Sakura, it isn't easy making these teams, you know. What a bother," he mutters. Now she does feel bad.

The rest of them shuffle out quietly, and she's acutely aware of Sasuke's chakra receding just enough for her to breathe normally again. Then finally, the door closes behind her.

"Sensei—"

Kakashi lifts his hand, silencing her. "It's okay, Sakura." He looks at her then, neither pity nor disappointment in his gaze and she's surprised by that. "It's Sasuke, right?"

Sakura exhales, her arms coming around to hold herself tightly. She wants to maintain some dignity but she's in front of another man who's gone through it all with her and she feels too pathetic to even stand straight.

"I'm not going to lie. I really would prefer you to be on this mission. I need a shinobi as versatile in combat and healing as you. I wouldn't have talked to Tsunade otherwise." Kakashi crosses his arms and sighs. "But I suppose there's not much we can do."

A silence ensues, Kakashi lost in thought as Sakura nervously shifts her feet, eyes downcast. "I'm sorry, sensei," she murmurs.

Kakashi closes his eyes, exhales. "I get it, Sakura." He meets her eyes then, and she's too guilty to find comfort in the gentleness of his gaze. "They were his transgressions. If you can't forgive him, that shouldn't be your burden to bear." Kakashi pauses then, and she sees the slightest narrowing of his brow and she suspects...

"But," he inserts. And she's right. "I think you need to look for some type of peace between you two." She represses the urge to shudder, cry, scream—because she expects it from Naruto but she hoped she didn't have to hear it from Kakashi too. And _gods_ it feels like everyone talks about restoration like it's _easy_ when it might actually just be impossible.

"I'm not just saying that because you're both elite nin and it would be _much_ easier on me to not have to maneuver you two on different squads—although, that is true. I'm not saying it because you're an important part of the medical staff and gods know with how impulsive Sasuke and Naruto are, they'll be visiting the hospital more often than either of us would like," he muses, a hint of gaiety in his voice. But Sakura couldn't find anything less funny considering they both took each other's arms off in the heat of their anguish and raw stupidity.

"I'm saying this because I care about you. You don't have to like him. But you don't deserve to be tormented by the past any more than he did, Sakura." His voice is sympathetic now. Sakura doesn't know what to feel. She refrains from chewing her lips to bloody pieces of tissue. "I don't think you're giving either you or Sasuke the credit you both deserve. You're stronger than this, Sakura."

 _Stronger than this?_ Her stomach churns in indignation and bewilderment. "But what if I'm not?" Sakura says. "I'm not Naruto, sensei, I can't just—"

"You don't have to be," Kakashi interrupts. "It wasn't just Naruto who kept us afloat all these years, Sakura. You did too." Sakura can feel her mouth twist and she doesn't know whether to shout or laugh at such a grand accusation. "The three of you are the same in that way. You're blindly courageous." But that's not true. She was _never_ on par with them. And the whole world knows it. Sakura feels wretched, unworthy, not a part of Team 7 at all and Kakashi must see this because he eyes her. "Don't give me that look. You _are_ , Sakura," he says. "You can beat this."

She's rigid with upset. And maybe she wants to believe him, his eyes shimmering with such naked faith, but she just can't. Sakura sighs in resignation and gives him a tired nod. "I'll try, sensei."

Kakashi nods back. "I'll take you off the mission. You're dismissed." Sakura mumurs a thank you, bows her head, and turns around to leave.

She takes a quiet, but deep breath in preparation, tries to muster Kakashi's imaginary perception of her before stalking through the heavy wooden doors. Sakura walks towards the right, not even sparing a glance to her left, where the group of chakra signatures stood. She can't look at him, it's too soon. Her legs move at a calculated, measured pace and she feels Sasuke's chakra above them all—invasive and piercing. Sakura's pulse quickens with every second. "You can go in now," she announces, her voice soft and controlled.

"What's wrong? Aren't you coming?" She hears Kiba call back out to her, followed by Akamaru's bark.

"Tch." Her throat tightens at the all too familiar sound. "She's probably going to be too busy at _the hospital,_ " Sasuke mocks with unveiled insult, alluding to his previous attempts to see her. And his voice echoes.

 _Stronger than this._ Kakashi said. But Sakura sees red, mouth twitching. That jackass has **no right**.

She considers stomping with a chakra infused leg, cracking the floor beneath his and her feet and watching the tower collapse on the two of them. How sweet it would taste to die with him now.

But he would probably just portal to safety and she would be left to crumble in her morbid self-prescribed destruction. Sakura keeps walking.

"Why'd you say it like that?" Kiba asks.

"Who cares," Shikamaru's says perfunctorily.

Sakura hears their footsteps and then the Hokage's door open and close. She wastes no time then, bolting forward, and leaping out the closest window.

* * *

"Forehead!" Ino's voice resonates from across the field, stilling Sakura's clenched fist.

Sakura studies the dented surface before her. It once resembled an iron dummy but is now crumpled and distorted, having only maintained its metallic sheen. She's suddenly aware of her own soft pants and the cool air against her. She notes how the dull throb in her knuckles helps satisfy the chafe in her head.

Sakura turns to look at Ino and is surprised to spot Hinata too. Sakura makes her way over to them with casual steps. She thinks she might just be exhausted enough to entertain civility for them. She wants to try.

"Hey Pig," Sakura greets. "Hinata." Her lips stretch into a smile, and she's pleasantly surprised it doesn't feel forced. "I haven't seen you out as much lately. How is everything?"

"You're one to talk," Ino jabs. It pinches, but Sakura chooses not to dignify her remark with a response.

"Sakura-san," Hinata's smile is demure as she inclines her head. She ignores Ino's comment too, probably because she's used to the backwards affections of bickering between loved ones by now. "I'm doing really well."

Sakura can see the evidence of that statement. Hinata's cheeks are pale but full, and her dark tresses shine. But what captures Sakura is the zeal in the Hyuga's white eyes—a blinding energy that she only wishes she could emulate. "You look amazing," Sakura breathes.

"Doesn't she?" Ino says, awe in her voice. "I'm fucking jealous. I better glow like that when I'm pregnant."

"Thank you." Hinata looks away bashfully, color warming her cheeks. Sakura's lips turn into a gentle smile, only half forced. Naruto and Hinata have come a long way, and most times it has her swelling with pride. But today she just wants to crawl under her covers, close the blinds, and never think about love again.

Hinata then looks at Sakura directly, "Sakura-san, I'm sorry to disturb you, but I came with Ino-san because…well," Hinata says, looks down, searches for the words. "…I know…Naruto-kun…" Sakura feels her stomach drop. "He didn't tell me all the details, but I feel awful about your argument."

Argument. She wishes it felt as small as the word, and not like the only family any of them have left is being torn apart because of her cowardice. She remember's Naruto's disappointment, and Sasuke's chidori. Sakura closes her eyes and stops herself from dry heaving in front of the two. Her mind drips red, a liquid waterfall streaming into the bleak.

"It's okay, Hinata," Sakura looks away from the two kunoichi. She pretends she's something tangible, something that makes sense. "You don't have to apologize for him. I'm sure he will on his own later anyway. He never lets me stay mad at him."

"What happened between you two?" Ino asks.

"Just another stupid fight about Sasuke." Sakura crosses her arms, and tries to look more angry and annoyed than utterly defeated.

Hinata's voice comes out shy, apologetic. "I-I don't know what is going on between you and Sasuke. But I'm sure you have your reasons." Sakura jaw is tight, her teeth clenched behind the firm line of her lips. Have your reasons? Wasn't it _obvious?_ "I try to discourage my husband from pushing you," Hinata says, looking down disappointedly. "I promise he means well though." Sakura feels sorry for her.

Then she sighs then. Because _of course_ Hinata would come out all this way just to apologize to her on behalf of her idiot best friend. They're both so effortlessly selfless and well-adjusted. Sakura wishes she can be like that too. "Yeah, I know. That idiot always means well."

"I thought maybe we could relax in the onsens," Hinata says, her voice hopeful. "And maybe get a bite to eat." Hinata looks at Sakura then, her eyes pleading and the pout of her mouth demanding adoration. "You...you don't have to worry about expenses. I'd just really like to make it up to you."

"Oh Hinata," Sakura says, apologetic. She covets the innocence radiating off the black haired beauty. What she would do to be clean again. "That's okay, you don—"

"That sounds great!" Ino chimes in, smacking an arm around Sakura's shoulders, and tugging her close. Sakura nearly yelps at the contact. "We can all go!"

Sakura pulls away with a frustrated growl despite how pleasantly warm her friend feels. "Pig," she reproaches, brows drawn.

"What?" Ino asks, her tone too defensive to be innocent. Sakura gives her an unimpressed look. "Oh, c'mon. Naruto's been a pain in your ass with that Sasuke shit—you always complain about it." Sakura crosses her arms but refrains from huddling into herself. She tries to vaporize Ino from existence with the heat of her glare. It doesn't work. "If she wants to treat you, let her. You've been too stressed out to pass up the offer."

"Please Sakura-san," Hinata says, her hand tentatively brushing against hers, her eyes beseeching—needy and nervous. She sees a Hyuga boy with a wet, bleeding stump. His eyes looked like that too as she carried him. _My hand._

Sakura recoils from her touch, fighting the guilt. "Okay," Sakura acquiesces. "I guess it's okay." She nods to affirm her position, hoping to dispel that sour look on Hinata's face. "Can I have an hour? I—I want to get some more training in first." She's exhausted and there's a dull throb in her temples, but she needs something to focus on.

Hinata smiles then, genuine and full. It almost makes her succession worth it. "Of course," Hinata responds and gives a graceful nod of her head.

"You already look half-dead, Forehead," Ino says, delicate as ever. "This isn't some elaborate ruse to pass out before you hang out with us, is it?" Her eyes study her, and she can see Ino's mouth twist in disapproval.

Sakura grimaces. "No, _Pig_ , it isn't."

"In that case," Ino walks out towards the field then, "train with me!" Ino exclaims. "It's been too long, and I want to see that monstrous strength of yours."

Sakura feels her chest ache. She knows what Ino is trying to do—checking up on her in a seemingly innocuous way. It's not a request for a spar, it's an interrogation. Sakura knows this is why Naruto always engaged Sasuke's violence when they were younger. She instantly hates herself for the comparison.

"You don't have any gear with you," Sakura says, elusive. Ino is vigilant—sensors always are. She hates that about her friends, all of them are great sensors, acutely tuned to her chakra. They always _know_. Especially when she doesn't want them to.

Ino shrugs. "You have plenty. Toss me a pouch."

Sakura considers protesting further, but knows it'll give her away. At least she's safe from Sasuke. He wouldn't prey on her with Ino and Hinata around. "Kunai or shuriken?"

Ino began to tie up her long silk strands. "I'll take shuriken."

"May I watch?" Hinata asks.

Sakura examines Hinata, and wonders if she's in on it. She almost immediately dismisses the idea as a figment of lingering paranoia. Hinata wouldn't play into these sick games. "Of course. Will you be comfortable though?" Sakura asks, moving to unlatch her pouch strapped to her right thigh.

Hinata nods. "I'll be fine," she assures, before moving to nest herself beside the trunk of a tree. The sky is grey and she can hear the distant piercing cry of a bird. Sakura scans the Hyuga over, looking for any signs of discomfort before she hands Ino a pouch of shuriken. She's glad her fingers aren't shaking.

They get into position and Sakura takes a deep breath. Then Ino bolts forward.

Sakura starts off strong, hoping to knock Ino senseless and end this quickly. She slams her fist into the ground, launching iron dummies, debris, and her opponent into the air. Ino's shoulder is bruised on one of the metal bodies, before she uses the mannequin to find her footing, propelling herself forward to dodge the others with acrobatic flips and twirls.

Sakura stomps as Ino finally lands, cracking the ground and successfully knocking her off balance, just in time to get smacked in the gut by a chunk of rock. But to Sakura's surprise, she quickly recovers.

Still, Ino struggles to keep up with Sakura, who's leveling the ground with every solid step she tries to take. All she hears is the roaring _BOOM._ of her own stomps and for a moment, Sakura thinks her plan just may work. But it only takes one shuriken flinging towards her, and she's jerking to the side, distracted just long enough for Ino to get back on her feet.

Sakura's already wheezing, her limbs painfully heavy. _Fuck._ Sakura knows she is tired, but she hadn't been expecting this.

Then there's an entire barrage of shuriken thrown her way, and Sakura sees them coming, but her movements are sluggish and dislocated. They whizz past her ears as she moves until a piece of metal lodges into her arm and then there are only waves of hot-white pain coursing through her. She's sure she cries out, though she doesn't hear it.

Sakura tries to recover, fingers moving to dislodge the weapons. Her lungs protest as she gasps for air, before she looks up and sees Ino's fist slam across her cheek. The hit isn't the most brutal punch she's taken, but it still has her careening onto all fours.

"I know you're faster than that, Forehead!" Ino exclaims, before taking Sakura's momentary distraction to send her flying with a chakra clad foot.

Her breath escapes her when her back hits bark and Sakura chokes on a whimper. For a moment all she feels is a ringing along her body, and she's reflexively weaving chakra through deplted muscle, torn tissue, and bone until she can think again. _Spinal damage. Definitely spinal damage._ She can already hear Ino's footsteps coming closer, and while Sakura doesn't expect any less of Ino, she wishes she had more time to recover.

Nonetheless, she somehow does. She traps Ino in a basic and seamless genjutsu where she's still on the ground, before breaking it with a fist to the blonde's stomach, cracking several ribs and sending her flying. Sakura's panting hard, and there's only mild relief in healing a few more of her wounds enough to continue. Her head is heavy and aching and she's at odds with her body. _I'm so slow._ She thought, pathetically. _When did I get so slow?_

She sees Ino lifting herself up with a groan, and Sakura remedies it with a kunai to her right shoulder with a callousness she nearly regrets. Ino cry is loud and piercing, and Sakura cringes at the depth of the sound. _Just make it quick,_ she thinks. Because she can't keep this up. She doesn't want to. And she bolts forward, determined to end this.

Ino just manages to get on her feet when Sakura's fist closes in on her right shoulder. Then Sakura's panting, chest burning, and Ino's face down on the ground again, several yards away.

Their spar quickly spins into a taijutsu match, where Sakura easily overpowers Ino, though her body feels as stiff and heavy as the iron dummies she'd been practicing on. Finally, Sakura settles their match by straddling Ino's hips with a kunai against her throat.

"Not bad," Ino groans, wheezing. "I wasn't—" She winces. "—expecting the genjutsu."

Sakura tries to focus her eyes on Ino's face but has trouble. She moves her kunai, not trusting her fingers hold tight. Sakura feels like she might drop at any moment. She's aching everywhere, and for once, she's actually hungry. She hopes Ino can't tell.

"You're faster than I remember," Sakura says, chakra pushing from her body into Ino's. "You didn't use any jutsus." She can barely hear her own voice.

"You're slower," Ino deadpans. "You're not taking care of yourself, Sakura." Rattled as her head may be, Sakura can hear the concern in Ino's voice.

She's quiet, too tired to speak. _So_ tired. Her head hurts. And she doesn't like that Ino's shoulder is bleeding. Sakura pours chakra into the wound assiduously. She's vaguely aware of Hinata approaching them from the distance. "I'm just a little tired from training beforehand," she says, voice monotone and head dizzy. "That's all."

Ino frowns but stays quiet.

"You two were really good," Hinata says with a gentle smile then, bending to help heal their wounds. She's obviously lying but Sakura doesn't blame her. There was nothing theatrical about their spar. After seeing Naruto and Sasuke lunge at each other's throats, she knows she'll never be impressed with a shinobi again. And she's grateful for that.

Sakura tells Hinata to only tend to Ino, "I can take care of mine," she says. Because one person knowing about her body's deterioration is more than enough.

* * *

The bathhouse is far more packed than Sakura would like, but she's relieved to scrub off the sweat, grime, and disappointment she has collected during the day. Tenten and a few other women are making idle chat over to her right. Ino probably would have join them, had she not been so exhausted from their earlier spar.

Sakura notes that Tenten looks better than she remembers. Her face is less gaunt, and her attitude is chipper. Even the purple that once adorned her eyes is now a mere tinge of pink. She wonders—between beats of her god awful headache—if Tenten still has to swallow the impulse to kill herself on occasion.

Ino curls around Sakura's limp body, tiredly leaning her head on her friend's shoulder. To her mild surprise, the contact is welcomed, somehow making her feel lighter despite the weight. Sakura tenderly caresses the blonde kunoichi, watching her best friend drift in and out of sleep as Tenten and another nin ask Hinata about the prospects of motherhood.

Sakura runs her fingers through Ino's hair and listens attentively as Hinata spares a few words. Her responses are short, but her smile is bright and her cheeks are rosy, conveying a quiet adoration. Hinata looks to Sakura for affirmation from time to time, and Sakura gives her a soft and encouraging smile.

There's so much about Hinata that is still a mystery to Sakura. Her demure disposition leaves much to the imagination. She's seen her annoyed many times—but never angry. She's seen her very happy too, she is right now. Still, it always comes out in a quiet mellow, softened beneath the shy quiver of her lips, and the pink of her cheeks. But it's there, bold and electrifying, right in the center of her eyes.

Sakura wonders if her quiet is a natural inclination towards reticence or if it's the product of a cruel upbringing. She often used to wonder this with Sasuke too.

 _Sasuke._ What a difference a few years has made, thinking of that name. And in some ways, it's not different at all. Always an unnerving, ubiquitous presence in her head.

Sakura remembers all of it, the sole vivid colors of her feelings in an opaque world. She had adored her Sasuke, loved him to her early death. And oh, death was so unkind. His absence—a lifelong winter.

She remembers clinging to Kakashi and Naruto as if they would slip right from her fingers after he left. She cried to her father. Fought vehemently with her mother, who _hated_ him. More than her tousan, more than herself, even more than _her_ , okaasan hated Sasuke.

"So training under the Goddaime, huh?" Mebuki had snarled, arms crossed. Sakura could feel her mother's smoldering gaze, sizing her up. She'd had that slow simmering quiet since Sakura announced it. Now Kizashi left the room and all Sakura had to buffer the coiling tension was the window's view and the anxious tapping of her foot. "What, are you trying to get in the bingo book just to get that boy back?"

"If that's what it takes," Sakura had snapped. She rose to her mother's challenges more those days.

"Sweet, sweet child," Okaasan said, sounding as if she thought Sakura was anything but. "You're going to get what you deserve—choosing that nutcase over your own family," Mebuki had said. And Sakura longed to be somewhere else. "You should never have become a shinobi."

"Why can't you just be proud of me for once? Otousan is!"

"Your Tousan is a fool!" She cried, voice strangled. "He shouldn't be encouraging you! That waif you're chasing is a monster! One look and I saw—"

"Shut up!" Sakura had screamed, face hot and head spinning. "You don't know him! You don't know anything!"

And she didn't. Mebuki was wrong. About almost everything. About Kakashi, about Tsunade, about Ino, and especially about Naruto.

So why couldn't she have been wrong about Sasuke too? Sakura hated when her okaasan was right.

But what a beautiful boy, Sakura had thought, the first time she saw him. He mesmerized her, _called_ her. How could she not fall for him? His boyish good looks, his midnight eyes, and that damned smirk that seized every piece of her being. A cruel smile—happiness smothered by cynical despair. _You're annoying._ He said.

What a shitty term of endearment, she knew—but her heart sped up all the same. At least it beats being bludgeoned to near death like he did Naruto. Such a delusional brat she had been, falling for it all. If only he had killed her when he left her on a cold bench. Then she wouldn't have nightmares about him doing it now.

Sakura hears his voice then, an echo of their earlier meeting in the Hokage's office. It was deep and alluring as always, but also matured somehow, despite the juvenile jab he made. She tries to picture the last time she's seen him, which seems far too long and still much too recent. His hair dark and his eyes crimson pinwheels, raw and unnaturally beautiful. His build is muscular, like any shinobi, but something about his physique and his constant, confident stature cries of power. The stern set of his jaw as he looks _down_ upon all of them cements the notion. Her handsome demon.

And with the new Rinnegan, he is deified. The ominous purple hue and the swirl of that divine eye has her seeing flashes of Madara. His dark incarnate—just as beautiful and painfully monstrous. Gods the Uchiha were—here to cast judgement and claim retribution from Konoha.

Sakura is pitifully thankful she doesn't know what Indra looks like in that moment. She might picture him killing her then too. The three of them would be having a dart throwing contest, except their darts are arrows of lightning and their dartboard is her head. Their eyes bloody revolutions, their smiles keepers of grief. Love lost to the wheel.

"Mm...Sakura?" Ino's voice chirps out, snapping Sakura back to the steam in front of her face.

Sakura jerks her head towards Ino. Her best friend yawns, before pulling away slightly to nestle her head more comfortably in the juncture between Sakura's neck and shoulder. "You're shaking, forehead," Ino mumbles into her skin. "Relax with me."

"Oh." Sakura deeply exhales and she's surprised by how much tension leaves in just that one breath. She wraps her arms around Ino who sighs contentedly.

"I swear you two are gay for eachother," Tenten says then. "I've actually been being with a girl and we didn't even cuddle like that."

"Oh please, Tenten, that doesn't count," A kunoichi interrupts. "You two didn't even fuck. You were just experimenting."

And Sakura rolls her eyes. If 'experimenting' secretly meant 'fucked up and desperate to feel again because Neji is dead' that statement might have been more accurate.

"Just saying. We all know Ino's bi, and you've never exactly dated anyone." Tenten looks at Sakura inquisitively, adorning a sly smile that was probably meant to be cute. "You sure you're not gay?"

Sakura knows she's teasing. Tenten doesn't mean to be offensive, but it feels like outsiders are trying to pry into her too much. It's been making her sick. Sakura tries to keep the resentment out of her voice as she speaks. "Yes, I'm sure."

"Oh... _wait a second_..." Tenten begins, the clever smile grows marginally wider. "Sasuke's back, isn't he?" I just saw him in the market the other day." And while Sakura struggles to maintain composure, Hinata flinches on her behalf. "Well? We all know you were like in love with him. You two aren't…are you?"

Sakura pictures herself drowning. Water filling her lungs and stealing her last, unwilling breath. Okaasan probably died that way. Suffocation. She remembers her blue skin. Opioid overdose tends to do that—slows the breathing until the unconscious victim is tragically dead. Sakura imagines the clear liquid of the bath blurring her eyes until she sees only black, then white, and finally nothing at all.

Ino's mumbles in the background of her hazy mind. "Tenten," Ino's voice is drowsy, but she still answers for Sakura since she's too busy fantasizing about death to open her mouth herself. "Shut the fuck up."

And Tenten listens, because she never quite washed away the guilt of Jin.


	8. Rope Burn

"Hey." Sakura stares down at the doormat and toys with her zipper, cool metal against her chilled fingertips. "I just...I wanted to...apologize." She swallows, then let's out a breath and watches the flutter of mist dissolve. Sakura looks up, eyes trailing from his veined feet, up dark weatpants and a white tee until she meets his face.

Naruto looks tired, and so sober she almost doesn't believe it's him at first. The cool of his blue eyes shine against the warm redness around them. They're swollen, glossy. Sakura knows that look, sees it often in the mirror. "Are you okay?" Sakura asks, and takes a tentative step closer. "What happened?" She reaches out.

When her fingers brush against the hot skin of his arm, Naruto flinches, but he doesn't pull away. Instead, he bites his lip at the question and Sakura sees it quivers under his teeth. There's a nervous shift of his iris, like he's chewing on a thought. And then she's being pulled into his arms.

Naruto squeezes hard, and a choked sound rumbles from his chest to his throat. Sakura has been less and less appreciative of physical contact lately, but right now she doesn't mind it. She buries her head in his chest and squeezes back. There's the distinct odor of sweat, and alcohol. Nothing about this image is gratifying.

Sakura feels him wheeze as much as she hears it, and that withered thing in her chest clenches painfully. "Naruto?" Sakura prompts, feeling the thin material of her jacket grow wet. Sakura motions to pull away, but his grasp keeps her tight against his tense body. He shudders and his breath is thick and Sakura tries not to panic because of it. She feels like he's going to crumble onto the floor, in a catastrophic mess of stone flesh and the world's burdens. "Naruto, why are you crying?"

Naruto's fingers dig into her arms, tight, and then they relax until he lets her go, and Sakura tries to be patient while he regains his bearings.

It's like the walls in the house are wrong. Sakura can feel the tension drifting through beyond Naruto, creeping in the doorframe of his home. _Where's Hinata?_ She thinks. _He needs Hinata._ Sakura can't do it. She has no paste.

Naruto shakes his head, wipes his glistening cheeks with the back of his hand in a single, haphazard motion. His smile is forceful and somehow not. "It's...it's nothing. I'm sorry," he says, voice raspy.

Sakura reaches out and cups his face, urging him to meet her gaze. "Naruto," she says, pressing him to speak. She knows she's being a hypocrite, but it doesn't matter because this is _Naruto_ and she'd do anything for him.

His hand covers hers, calloused and hot. "It's nothing," he repeats, voice calm. "Just the teme."

Sakura tenses hard against him, like her skin just met the cold steel of kunai. The wind blows pink into her face. She sees the slight corner of his lips pull downward through the strands.

"Oh," Sakura says, combing her fingers through her hair. It's frigid, but her hand is too numb for her to feel it.

His thumb gently glides over her knuckles. "He's over right now," Naruto says, but he doesn't sound happy about it. Sakura thinks this might explain the dark shroud coming from indoors. Sasuke carries that gummy ambience everywhere.

"I'm sorry, Sakura-chan." Naruto's smile is ugly and distorted, and she thinks it must be the first time she has ever thought that about her knuckleheaded teammate. "I'd invite you in, you look like you're freezing," his laugh is hollow, his hand dropping.

 _What happened?_ Sakura moves her hand back to nestle against her coat. Naruto's eyes are grief weighted glass, ready to fall out of his sockets and shatter into rain between their feet. Sakura wishes she was a better medic so that she could fix them.

"Is…" She thinks of Sasuke, what he could possibly be doing there. She sees his eyes, dark, brooding, and saturated with loss. "Is he okay?" And Sakura isn't sure if she asks for Naruto's sake or for hers. Sometimes she can't tell the difference.

Naruto makes a face at this, brow and nose wrinkling. "It's _Sasuke_ ," he deadpans.

 _Right._ Sakura averts her doesn't know why she asked. It was a stupid question.

Naruto steals a determined breath then, but it shakes. Sakura shakes too. "We're Team 7," he says, clinging to resolve despite the exhaustion in his voice. "It'll be okay, Sakura-chan." He promises, as if she's the one who needs consoling. Her erratic heartbeat tells her that she just might. "We can get through anything."

Sakura isn't sure what pushes her then, but Naruto is reaching for her and then she's throwing herself into his arms. "I love you," she says, voice muffled in his white tee. Naruto is radiant, even when lathered in grief. Forever her sunshine boy. "I love you, Naruto." Her tears are hot and wet.

He grips her hard, and she feels his fingers digging into her bones. Any other moment and she's sure he would comment. "I love you too, Sakura-chan." Naruto rests his head against her shoulder. "I'm sorry about the other day."

"Me too," Sakura says, and she's a little surprised by how breathy her voice comes out. She pulls away to look at him with a confidence that she dreams of handing him, the way he has always handed her. "I'll try harder." She says, and she means it. If only for him. Naruto doesn't deserve this. Sasuke doesn't either, but that's easier to forget these days.

Naruto nods, smiles tiredly. "Okay." There isn't real conviction in his voice, not at all like the one she's used to, at least. But she supposes she deserves that. She doesn't always believe herself either.

Sakura swallows. It does nothing to ease the dryness of her throat. "Come over soon?" Sakura asks, her smile is strained, like two little tacks had to pinch the curl of her lips up. Still, she is hopeful.

Naruto nods again, this time with more enthusiasm, and she thinks maybe her broken gestures might be working. "Not tonight, but as soon as I can," he promises. "We can have a movie night at your place. Maybe Ino and Sai can come too."

"And Hinata," Sakura says, her smile soft. "I can give her backrubs and OMM. I still need to pay her back for the other day."

Naruto smiles softly, in that way he always does when it comes to Hinata. "Yeah. I think she'd like that."

* * *

"Sakura," Tsunade grunts out, her monstrous strength nearly crumpling the door in her grasp.

"Yes, shishou?" Sakura asks, not even looking in her mentor's direction as she collects an opaque saffron substance into a dropper.

These days, Tsunade has been perpetually stressed out from the poison outbreak case they've yet to solve, and she's been more volatile because of it. Sakura puts up with it because she knows her shishou has always done the same for her. And sometimes Sakura suspects she likes the stern beligerence too. It gives her a strange sense of direction.

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop suppressing your chakra?" Tsunade asks. Like a switch, Sakura let's go of her chakra mask, grimacing at her blunder. "I just needed your help to restrain a handful of patients, you ignored your pager, and the assistant couldn't find you _again_."

Sakura pinches the black knob of the dropper, before returning it to its container and reaching for another. "I'm sorry, shishou. It's a bad habit, I'll—"

"Who are you hiding from?" Tsunade asks, hands on her hips.

Sakura frowns, placing the dropper she just picked up down. "I'll try not to do it again."

" _Who_ , Sakura?" Tsunade persists, voice demanding

"Does it matter?" Sakura stares into the beaker before her, watching the mixture as it clouds. She loves it when they do this. When the fractured light gets lost in the smog of a solvent. She looks at another beaker, Sample S4, ready to add it to the fog. Maybe the wonder of experimentation can keep her from this conversation

"Look at me, Sakura." It can't. So Sakura turns, meets the Godaime's fierce gaze head on. "If it's inhibiting your ability to work with the rest of the staff, then yes, it matters." Tsunade's expression softens incrementally. "What's going on?"

"I'm dealing with it," Sakura says, thinking she sounds like a broken record. Feels like one too.

"Not well enough," Tsunade grunts, crossing her arms..

"Please, shishou, I just want to concentrate on work." Sakura turns her focus back onto the glass cylinder in front of her. A rat caged in the corner of the lab squeaks.

"You can be evasive if you want, but I _will_ find out, kid," Tsunade challenges. "One way or another."

Sakura doesn't even bother to stifle her annoyed sigh before turning around and giving her a half-hearted glare. "Sasuke," Sakura says. "He came back to Konoha and I'm not ready to see him." She turns back around. "And don't worry about interrogating me on it, the rest of Konoha already has you covered."

Tsunade scoffs. "Must be bad if you're giving me this much sass. And people wonder why I day drink," Tsunade mutters. Sakura scribbles nonsensically on a notepad with worn, yellow pages. She hopes it looks like she's actually writing something relevant. "Paranoid about your teammate, huh? Wish I could say I don't understand," she says. "But you still need to remember to get rid of the mask when you're in here, got it?"

"Yes, of course, shishou," Sakura responds, her tone monotonous. She keeps writing, trying to distract herself from the stiffness in her shoulders.

"Have you been stealing medications again?"

Sakura hand spasms, nearly knocking a glass beaker over. She turns to give Tsunade an incredulous look. "What? No!" She says, voice shrill. Sakura winces at the growing crease of Tsunade's lips, her brow. She feels like she's just been slapped across her tired face. "I didn't, shishou, I swear! I—I wouldn't go back on my word, you—"

Tsunade waves a hand dismissively. "Alright, alright," she says, impatient. "I believe you." She folds her arms. "I didn't really think it was you, but I just wanted to be sure."

Sakura grasps her wrist to steady it. "What exactly is missing?" Sakura asks, trying to focus on Tsunade's amber eyes.

"The same ones you were snatching," Tsunade says, and Sakura can hear the disappointment in her voice. "And a lot more antipsychotics too."

Sakura nods, curls her arms into herself, trying to alleviate the gooseflesh on the back of her neck. She hopes her back is taut enough for it to pass off as indifference. "That doesn't narrow it much. It could be anyone."

Blue eyes wring her head, too sad, too anxious. It could be anyone—but Sakura has a feeling it isn't.

"They grabbed strong stuff. If it's a shinobi whose mental illness isn't being professionally managed, we'll inevitably have more homicides on our hands," Tsunade says, leaning against the door. Her shoulders are slumped in resignation. "I just hope it ends in an overdose instead."

"What happened?" Sakura remembered an officer had asked her. It was a woman, with stern eyes and a set jaw. She remembered the Konoha police badge on her left arm, and the freckles dotted along her nose and cheeks. It was a soft feature that Sakura didn't think should have belonged to such a hardened face.

"I–I don't know. She's not breathing," Sakura had said, not really hearing her voice. "I don't know–I just came and– and she's _blue._ "

"Looks like an overdose," Someone said behind her. Then they they put kaasan's body on a stretcher.

For a moment, the colors around Sakura are bleeding into one another, and there's a gaunt humming moving through her head, muffling all other noises in the lab. She turns to study the pad of notes—a little square blur of yellow. The rat in the corner is rolling in circles on its side.

"Sorry," She barely hears Tsunade mumble. "I'm probably just being cynical," she amends, though it doesn't really sound like she believes it. "How's the project going?"

Sakura stays quiet, just until the sound of the ventilator crooning in the back of the lab sounds close enough for it to be in the same room as her again. "Fine," she says. And Tsunade doesn't comment on the pause. "Brain activity in the test subjects are slowing, as predicted."

"Good." Tsunade says. "You're a pain in the ass sometimes, but you're not my disciple without reason."

Sakura nods, knowing it's a compliment she would normally take pride in, but is unable to for some reason. She decides to mix sample S4 into the beaker by her notes. She remembers needing to do that next.

"I want you to go talk to one of our Ashi patients," Tsunade says. "The one that isn't screaming their head off."

Sakura turns to look at the Godaime. She looks slightly disturbed and Sakura can only assume the worst. "Is it progressing fast?" she asks. "I can stay f—"

"No," Tsunade interrupts. "I am getting worried, but it's not moving through their systems as fast as the rats. I just want you to check for things I may have missed." Tsunade steals a glance towards the side where the rat was, before she looks back at Sakura. "I'm seeing disturbances and I think you'll be able to pick up on more than I have. You're better at neurology," Tsunade explains. "Don't waste time with a report for the experiments here, I'll just take over now."

"Okay," Sakura agrees, pulling off her gloves easy. The latex smacks against her fingers and it's the sharp sting that grounds her back to the hospital. _Right. I was making an antidote._ Sakura remembers. _Mix 4ml of Part C3._ "Will you be alright in here? My notes aren't exactly coherent." Sakura says, skims over her nearby notepad, determining if her chicken scratch is even legible. She scribbles over incoherent lines and profanities that don't belong, before adding her latest thought.

"It's fine, I've dealt with your notes before. And Shizune's—Gods help her notetaking skills," Tsunade says, walking over to a sink to wash her hands. "The beakers are labelled, I'll figure it out."

"Okay," Sakura says, penciling in a few last words. "And the patient? Where can I find them?"

"His name is Yuuto and he's in F12." Tsunade calls over the running water. "Be as thorough as you can."

Then Sakura's walking along the corridors of the hospital, the pungent smell of antiseptic cascading through her head. On the fifth floor, she can hear the echo of uncanny screams.

She enters the room, politely introducing herself before looking over her patient's chart. "Yuuto, is it?"

"Correct," he says, a deep rasp in his voice. His aqua hair is brilliant and striking in color alone, curled and matted with sweat. "I was wondering if I'd finally get to meet the infamous Haruno," he says dryly. He looks tired, hard lines running along his brow and the crease by his eyes. "You're just as beautiful as they say you are."

His voice is so dull, and his eyes unfocused that Sakura isn't quite sure if he means any of it. But she smiles politely and thanks him anyway. "I'm going to examine your head with chakra. It's non-invasive and shouldn't take longer than a few minutes. Is that alright?"

"That's fine," Yuuto says.

Sakura finally reaches Tsunade's most recent notes on his chart, and skims them over as she approaches him. Nothing seems major as of now, but she sees the beginnings of mania that have taken the first two rats. She doesn't let her concern show. "You should only feel a mild heat around your head. Please let me know if you feel even the barest discomfort or pain," she says clinically, before placing the clipboard on the side and hovering luminescent hands just above his head.

Yuuto hums his surprise. "Your chakra is much warmer than the other doctors. Anyone ever told you that?"

"A few times," Sakura responds, and gives him a soft smile. "Your stress is high," she comments. High is an understatement, his HPA axis activity is spiraling.

"Nightmares," he grunts. "But I guess that's no surprise when you're watching most of your clansmen die."

Sakura frowns, and asks, "What were they like?" She pauses. "Were they as bright as your hair?" Sakura wonders, before realizing how ridiculous that question sounds. She tries to explain herself. "I mean, I just never see clansmen with color this vibrant."

He chuckles, making a sound that's thick and light at the same time. "I never liked it much. It's terrible for stealth. We're always using dye or henges." Yuuto eyes her bubblegum strands then. "I'm sure you know what I mean. Your hair is lovely though. Suits you."

Sakura wonders what compels a stranger to say this, considering he's just met her, but she doesn't ponder this aloud. She simply hums in acknowledgement as he continues. "They're kind people. But diplomatic. We're always aligning with other clans or acting as allies because of our kekkei genkai."

"What is your kekkei genkai, exactly?" Sakura asks. "My colleagues briefly told me the Ashi specialize in fūinjutsu, but sealing what, exactly?"

"Anything, really," Yuuto says. "Transformations, summons, weapons—even chakra natures themselves, on higher levels. Our clan reinvented sealing for Kirigakure. We're not great at offense like most other clans, but our defense is one of the best." He says, and she can hear the pride in his voice, before his lips turn downwards. "Well, it _was_ anyway."

Sakura removes her hands and begins adding to the notes on Yuuto's file. Her lips purse. She thinks of the screaming she heard on the fifth floor and sees a caged rat rolling in circles in her mind's eye.

"Am I going to die?" Yuuto asks.

Sakura wishes she can tell him no.

* * *

Sakura thinks she might be doing better. She treats herself like a machine, plugging out of her thoughts and distracting herself with work when she has a bad trail of ruminations. _It works,_ she thinks, but isn't sure.

The sky is chrome when she arrives just outside of the apartment building. When she reaches the walkway, her eyes are drawn to a slight shuffling in a patch of tall grass and assorted flowers. Normally, Sakura would just let it be. But it's frigid out and she hasn't seen a squirrel or chipmunk in weeks.

Just a bird—probably. _Almost definitely,_ she thinks, stepping from pavement to grass. _Paranoid._ She's being paranoid again. She hates it when she gets like this. _It's fine._ She'll just take a quick look and move on. She dreams of moving on.

Sakura nearly screams when her eyes catch hold of a garden snake, slithering about. It stills instantly, hissing—innocuously or predatory—it didn't matter because her foot is coming down.

Sakura slams her heel down on its rounded head. The blood splatters, and the cracks in the ground stretch all the way onto the walkway. She sees _red_ , sinking through the heel of her boot and broken flower petals. Sakura stumbles back, horrified, mind swimming in a macabre tunnel vision. The forest of death. Orochimaru. Kabuto. Sasuke. _Sasuke._

Headless—headless the serpent sits. Headless from a chakra concentrated limb. This time with her foot. She can still remember her first kill—a middle aged man with soft brown eyes.

He'd been coming up on Lee. And Sakura had thought, _just a punch_. A fist to the face to disarm him. It would result in a broken nose at most. But she was too frantic because it was _Lee_ and she felt the tingles in her knuckles from the excess load of chakra.

Then his head was flying off his body—chunks of torn flesh flung about. The severance was so unnatural, it was like an explosion. She felt wet heat splash against her cheeks, tasted the iron between parted lips. Lee looked horrified. _S-Sakura...san?_

Sakura smears her foot on the grass again and again, but it only flattens the greenery and spreads the mess on her heel. She can't erase it. She can _never_ erase it. She glances at the corpse in front of her, its crushed skull a bloody wreckage, its sheen body perfectly still.

She runs into the apartment building and into her studio, her left foot leaving a trail of gore. Frantic, she fumbles for her keys before she decides she can't wait any longer and breaks the lock on her door. All she can see is the red, staining her hands, peering into her heart, and coiling around it. Orochimaru is going to take her love from her. Sasuke is so dead inside he'll just let him. _But he's not_ —he lives inside rage and loss and love's poltergeists. Sasuke's will is their dogma now— _SasukeSasukeSasuke_ —it's him that will do her in. His chidori chirps in her ears, kusanagi drawn. Kill Naruto, kill Kakashi, kill her. _Break every bond._

 _Sasuke-kun, **DON'T!**_

Sakura pulls her boot off and all but runs to her sink. She turns the knob and watches the blood pour down the drain with trembling fingers and a unwound head. She turns the boot on it's side, angles it so it can just _be clean_. But then she sees bits of fleshy pinks and greys–the kinds she sees in surgeries and missions gone awryy–clinging to the sole. Instantly, she's keeling over and vomiting onto her white kitchen tiles, high pitched gags vibrating through the room.

Sakura heaves for long minutes, her tears warm and cool at once. She wipes her mouth, slowly rises to tend back to her boot. Suddenly, it's easier—her stomach less queasy than before. She increases the water pressure and holds the boot at an angle again. "Please get off," Sakura whimpers. She shouldn't have killed that nin. She should have had better chakra control, the way shishou had taught her.

The water washes it away, leaving only old scruffs and bits of mud. _Clean._ Sakura chokes on a laugh of relief. "Fuck," she gasps, lips curved in a tortured smile. "Okay," she tells herself, wiping a wet cheek with the inside of her wrist. "It's okay."

Sakura leaves both of her shoes on her welcome mat and goes to lay in bed. She tries not to think of Naruto or Kakashi and her promises to get better. She tries even harder not to think of Sasuke.


	9. Homage

Ino is touching Sai.

Sakura can tell. It's subtle, but the movement of a right arm beneath the duvet is making a repetitive, vertical motion. If that isn't evidence enough, the hushed grunts and gasps leaking through Sai's lips are. The couch makes a rubber squeak under the shifts of his body.

To be fair, Sakura knows it looks like she is asleep. She is lying on another couch and had dozed off enough to let go of the mask of her chakra earlier. Naruto is openly snoring on the other side, having passed out drunk with Hinata curled comfortably in his arms. The credits of a terrible movie they had been watching are now rolling on the neglected t.v. screen. Sakura supposes, had she been Ino, she would have wanted adequate entertainment too.

She listens in, peeking now and then with a sideward glance. Sai's breaths are coming in shorter, his stature increasingly rigid. She sees Ino slant her face into the crook of his neck and then she makes a sound too. The motions of Sai's right arm are harder to detect than Ino's, but when Sakura looks for it, she sees it clear as day. She hears Ino sigh sweetly, and then there's the sound of a wet suction that can only be a kiss.

Sakura wonders if the fact that she's more intrigued than disgusted makes her a pervert. Or possibly a voyeur. She knows she would openly watch if she could. She wants to study them, note how their hands move over skin, memerize the discourse between eyes.

Love between the bodies exists—Sakura knows it does. But her curiosity was buried with the horror of unwanted hands on her flesh. Bloody tomoe swirled lazily in her head that day, sparked with the same madness as her intruder—yearning for a past that hadn't survived. Those cruel, witted eyes took her desire from her, took everything from her.

But Ino has been through the miasma too, hasn't she? And Sai, poor Sai—still learning to express himself without coming off as an unlubricated machine—is choking out a moan. The two of them are here, doing it right on her couch. They've found the secret she is still searching for.

Sakura drinks every bit in, savoring the texture of their pleasure in her mouth like a full meal after too many years of famine. It continues, the uneven breaths, the wet kisses, the small noises. Ino is a little louder than him, but Sakura's sure it's only because Sai is making a greater effort to be quiet.

Eventually they begin to fumble beneath the blanket, then remove it to go down the hall, Ino leading Sai with her hand clasped over his. Sakura hears a door open and shut—no doubt Ino's old bedroom from when she used to live in the apartment. The light from the t.v. screen flashes against the adjacent wall.

Sakura starts to hear Ino's cries of pleasure, followed by thumps and creaks of a bed. She curls up closer into her own comforter, careful not to disturb Naruto and Hinata on the other side of the couch.

Ino has had sex with countless other people in that very same room, on that very same bed, in what could only be described as a deeply confusing and painful period of her lifetime. Hearing the soft moans of her friend then, with a man she is undoubtedly in love with, softens something inside of Sakura.

She traces intricate swirls and circles on the arm of the sofa, drawing glyphs to the sound of love making. Sakura thinks her hands must be something foreign to move so delicately like that, her skin an opaque blue from the television screen.

When the sounds quiet, Sakura lifts her head up to look over at Naruto and Hinata. Naruto's nose is burrowed in Hinata's charcoal hair. She has the wisp of a smile , eyes closed peacefully. The image is surreal and oddly fascinating. For a moment, Sakura imagines that they're both dead, holding one another in the most peaceful sleep life has to offer. Then Naruto lets out an audacious snore, shattering the image in an instant.

Sakura stands slowly, turning off the t.v. They hadn't been planning a sleepover—even if Naruto did bring sake as an apology, (only to drink most of it himself.) The movie they chose was just so dull that they all ended up dozing off, Sakura exhausted from her shifts in the hospital, Naruto pleasantly drunk, and Hinata unnaturally relaxed from the massage Sakura had given her.

Sakura switches on the living room light and the Hyuga begins to stir. "Hinata," Sakura calls, her voice a soft whisper.

"Hm…?" Hinata moans, "S-Sakura-san?" she slurs, saturated with sleep.

Sakura moves over to the couple. "Sorry for waking you," she whispers. "I just thought it might be better if you two moved to the bed." Sakura has to hold back from smiling, Hinata straining to look at her through the brightness of the room. The Hyuga heiress looks downright adorable. "I'd feel a lot more comfortable if you two weren't crammed on the couch like this."

"Oh," Hinata murmurs, closing her eyes. She exhales gently and asks, "And you?"

"I'll take the couch," Sakura explains.

Hinata's lips pull slightly downward.

"I'll be fine, don't worry. It's much more roomy when there aren't two other people on it."

Sakura thinks Hinata is about to protest, but she just nods tiredly. "Okay," Hinata mumbles.

She lets Sakura guide her to the bedroom, and easily makes herself comfortable on the plush mattress. Sakura doesn't bother waking Naruto up, just carries him from the couch to her bedroom, gently laying him by Hinata. Hinata curls into him almost instinctively, probably too tired to bother with modesty. And Naruto responds to her, even in unconsciousness, wrapping a muscled arm around his wife.

"Good night," Sakura whispers, before heading back to the living room.

Despite being on a sofa, Sakura sleeps better than she has in weeks.

* * *

"Sakura, right?"

Sakura turns her head to spot familiar green hair she had seen only a few days ago. "Oh." She offers him a tired smile. "Hi Kaito."

She sees the way his eyes twitch wide at the sound of his name and Sakura feels her abdomen twist in an empathic ache. She knows what it's like to be forgettable too.

His focus is timidly fixed on her. He seems agitated, she observes, his lips scrunched together, shoulders tense. "Is everything alright?" Sakura asks.

Kaito nods, offering a smile much more sincere than hers. "Yeah, I'm just visiting a friend," he explains.

He's still rigid, but there isn't terror in his tone so she can only assume his friend isn't dying. _That's good._ She nods her head, to herself and to him.

"It's a shame you can't be on the mission with us," Kaito says.

Sakura fights the stiffness in her jaw and fingers, and she prepares for an interrogation. _Busy at the hospital._ But Kakashi said he spoke to Tsunade. _Fuck_. _Chakra block?_ Then she wouldn't be here at work right now. _Sick friend. Completely bonkers. Needs my help._ But then what kind of friend would she be to not commit them to a psych ward.

Maybe he notices her anxiety, because his eyes quiver, stricken with the kind of panic that accompanies a heinous blunder. "Ah—I mean—you're a brilliant shinobi, is all," Kaito amends. "I've really enjoyed working with you."

 _Oh._ He isn't going to ask.

Sakura smiles softly, and she finds she doesn't need to make an effort to give her features vibrance. "Thank you," she murmurs, then adds with more confidence, "I'm sure you're a great shinobi yourself. Hokage-sama wouldn't have chosen you for such a high class mission if you weren't." And it's true. Kakashi is methodical and calculating. He favors fail-safe options over risky calculations. He's lost too much to chance already.

"Although we won't see each other on the mission," The sensor says. He lifts quivering knuckles to his lips and clears his throat. "Maybe we can see each other after?" Kaito says, and she watches the bob of his adam's apple as he swallows thick. "On a date?" He clarifies.

There's a tense pause where she tries to grapple with the proposition, flustered, because although this isn't entirely uncommon for her, it's not so often these offers feel so earnest. Kaito is looking straight at her, his brown honey struggling to refrain from melting, unease blaring and palpable. Sakura becomes increasingly aware of the purgatory she's putting this poor nin through as she tries to process the new, tightly wound ball that's floating in her stomach.

He speaks again, his tempo comes in fast. "I know, this is probably inappropriate—you're working—I-I just thought…"

He pauses, breaks eye contact for respite before reconstructing himself with greater confidence. "You're beautiful." His sincerity is found raw in the texture of his voice and Sakura feels the thing lodged in her gut flutter. "And I would really like to take you out."

"Yes," Sakura says quickly, before she can second guess herself. "Yes, I would love that." She feels a wide smile stretch onto her face, remembering an earlier conversation that implored she give love a fighting chance.

She watches the relief cascade through him, shoulders falling while a saccharine smile bursts through his lips. "Oh...wow. I kind of wasn't expecting that," Kaito gives a semi-nervous chuckle. He exhales, stretching the tension away. "Alright, I guess I'll just come by the hospital after the mission?"

"Sure!" Sakura nods, and she can feel the warmth on her cheeks, the slight speed of her heart. She's never been on a date before, and she can't help but feel excited. "If I'm busy or not around, just leave a note with whoever is at the front desk. I'll get in contact and we can figure out the details."

"Great," Kaito nods his head and doesn't even try to fight back his grin. She likes that. It reminds her of Naruto. Smiles like that are wonderfully contagious things. "I'll see you then."

* * *

When Sakura walks back home that evening, her thoughts are wrapped in white silk. The sun doesn't come out as early, and the leaves are nearly all gone now, but she's warm with the knowledge that she'll soon be having her very first date.

Some part of Sakura knows she shouldn't have said yes—that she was sentencing herself and him for disappointment—another little death to survive. Because she _isn't_ ready. She couldn't be. There are just too many phantoms flitting around right now and she shouldn't be dragging someone else to meet them. They cradle her with claws while she sleeps. Sakura is sure of it.

Nonetheless, she's smiling more often, and even treating herself to small meals and snacks. She imagines and reimagines her first date with Kaito, each one ending with a pair of puckered lips and the heat of being gathered in a pair of bronze arms. Suddenly, Sakura remembers what it's like to _want_ again.

"Not that I'm not happy for you," Ino says, dipping a roller in pale green paint. "But maybe you should slow it down. You don't _know_ him, Sakura."

"I know," Sakura says, smiling. "That's why it's perfect."

The living room walls are decided to be Sai's new project. Ino plans to surprise him by doing the base and so he can skip straight to the decorative illustrations when he comes back from his mission. Sakura has just finished moving the furniture to the center of the room.

"That's a dangerous game, forehead," Ino says, rolling a splotch of mint over the base. "We all did that with Sasuke and—"

"He's **not** Sasuke," Sakura interrupts with crass certainty. He isn't. Nobody is.

Ino looks over at Sakura with a slight pout, before smiling. "You're right. Let me stop being such a downer." The paint makes a wet _squelch_ as it meets the wall. "I'm just really protective of you, you know." And Sakura does.

She watches as several wet lines dribble down from Ino's workspace. The color is so light it almost blends in with the white beneath it. Almost. "But first dates are super fun. The best part is when you realize it's going nowhere so you just start making shit up just to see how they'll react."

"Pig!" Sakura laughs aloud, the sound foreign to her own ears. It must be to Ino too, because she sees her arm quiver. Fortunately, Sakura's in a good enough mood that she can ignore it. "How many times did you resort to that?"

"More times than I can count. I was making up completely different personalities too, when I was younger." Ino says, a wistful grin on her face. "Wasn't that hard, considering..."

"Oh yeah," Sakura says, remembering her best friend who wasn't quite herself anymore—lost in mannerisms and memories that weren't hers. "How has that been, by the way? Did you ever tell Sai about it?"

Ino just shrugs, looking bored. Sakura nearly cringes at that. "I don't use the jutsu for that long anymore. It hasn't gotten that bad in years."

"You should tell him, Ino," Sakura reproaches, before hastily amending her tone. "You know, just incase. So he'll know what to do."

Ino's brow twitches and there's a pregnant pause of idle painting. "I don't...I don't want to make it real," she says, then stares down at the roller in her hand. Sakura makes a sharp inhale and looks away. She didn't like that statement. She had that same thought when she was younger, and was longing for her love to return.

"Ugh, it's _fine_." Ino groans to herself suddenly. "I manage it so much better now, it's not even a thing."

Sakura looks at Ino again, frowning. "But if it happens again, he'll need to—"

"Forehead," Ino sighs, her shoulders slumping. She stares at Sakura, half pleading, half chiding. Sakura feels anger unfurl in her chest, and a twinge of guilt too. "If I thought it was a problem, I would tell you, okay?" Ino looks back at the wall, dips her roller into the tray of paint. "It's in the past. Let's just keep it there."

Sakura frowns, wondering how it can be that simple. But she trusts Ino enough to believe her. She mercifully changes the subject. "Before I get my hands wet, do you want me to make tea or something?"

Ino stills, brings a hand to her chin in contemplation before shrugging. "Nah," she decides. "The only tea we have is some foreign crap Sai bought. It's supposed to help with cramps or something but it just tastes like ass."

Sakura smirks fondly. "Sai's too cute." She lifts the other roller, admires the way the soft bristles saturate in the green hue when she dips it into the tray. "At least he tries."

"Yeah, he's super sweet about it." Ino smiles. "You'd be surprised how many guys out there get uptight about periods. Meanwhile Sai comes home with some new weird product or technique every month," she scoffs. "Mind you, the only suggestion I've actually liked is fucking."

Sakura rolls her eyes, smirking. "What a surprise."

"So tell me about this guy," Ino says, and Sakura finds herself instantly smiling. "You've been on a mission with him before, right?"

Sakura nods, extending her arm upward to roll slick paint on. "He's a sensor."

" _Oh_ ," Ino says. "I think a sensor would be good for you. They're really perceptive. Kind of forces honest communication."

"Oh, you don't have to tell _me_ that," Sakura snorts. She sees Ino's cheeks heat up ever so slightly.

"What's he look like?"

"He's…" Sakura pauses, considering. "Attractive." She smiles. "And he has green hair. Like _green_ green hair."

"Oh shit, I think I've been in a team with him!" Ino exclaims. "Oh my god, that dude was so _hot!_ " She gushes, "I mean—not like Sasuke or Sai hot, they're just superhumanly sexy—but shit, I remember he took off his shirt when I was healing him on a mission and _ooohh_ gurl!" Ino says, "Total heartthrob!"

Sakura chuckles, "Pig!" She tries to swallow her nervous smile and hopes her cheeks aren't as pink as they feel.

"What do you think your babies will look like?" Ino asks. "What color will their hair be?"

"And she tells _me_ to slow down," Sakura mumbles, her stomach squirming in shared excitement. "Let's just wait until the first date before we talk about babies, okay?"

Ino laughs lightly, "Yeah, you're right. We gotta make sure he's not just trying to get laid or marry rich."

Sakura nearly chokes on her spit. "Marry rich? I never even thought of that."

Ino just shrugs. "You're probably going to be head of the hospital when Tsunade retires, everyone knows you make big bucks." She lathers the roller in more slick paint. "Y'know, I think if he doesn't work out, you should try dating a civilian. They're way less maintenance and drama."

Sakura tenses because _this is code_ , she's learned, in ways she didn't want to.

"She can be difficult," Kizashi had said casually to a friend, when he was too tired to love her okaasan anymore. Sakura knew she wasn't supposed to be listening in on their conversation like that, but that's exactly why she did. Something was wrong with her okaasan and everyone kept pretended like there wasn't. Sakura had been sick of it. "High maintenance—you know," Kizashe had amended, not liking his previous diction. "I thought she'd be better after her father passed—that she'd let it go. But she didn't."

Sakura recoils, as if she'd been slapped across her flushed cheeks. Her brows furrow and she frowns. "What makes you think I care about that?"

"I mean—I thought that—" Ino falters, hands still as her lips twitch. "I don't know, simplicity is nice."

Sakura's frown deepens. "What?"

Ino bashfully meets her eyes, lips twisted in an anxious line. "Nothing, it was stupid. Just forget it."

Sakura opens her mouth to question her further, before there's a sudden, hollow _thump thump_. The two kunoichi look over at the window, spotting a small canine.

"A mission?" Sakura asks, and Ino walks over to open the window.

"Yamanaka-san!" the orange spotted dog greets, "Hokage-sama has summoned you. He would like to see you as soon as possible!" Ino turns to give Sakura an apologetic look.

"It's okay," Sakura says, nodding gently. "Go ahead. I'll just finish up this wall and head out."

"Thanks, forehead." Ino smiles soft. She gives her a goodbye hug and squeezes tight. This shouldn't startle Sakura, but it does.

The embrace is not apologetic, Sakura realizes. Perhaps grateful, but mostly just warm. Affection for the sake of it. It's so good, the awareness of her own yearning for intimacy tsunamis through her. Sakura has been needing this. She's been needing it forever.

But then Ino's pulling away. "You're the best," Ino says.

Then she is gone.

* * *

"You remind me of my niece," Yuuto says, a weary smile on his lips. The white tiles and walls, reflecting too-bright lighting is hard on Sakura's eyes today, and she doesn't know why. Lack of sleep, her body thinks. Lack of dreams, her head replies.

"Oh? How so?" Sakura asks, running her palm along his bare chest. The vibrant green of her hand is iridescent and makes the pain behind her eyes worse.

"Do you feel discomfort when I do this?" She asks, applying slight pressure to the breastbone. She likes the way he tenses against her, knowing it's not of pain. It happens often when she's with patients and she hasn't tired of it yet. It's one of the subtle reminders that she's not just good at this but she _belongs_. And Sakura never felt like that until Tsunade.

"No, no pain," Yuuto tells her, and her hands move to his head, gently presses against the forefront of his skull. "You have these moments," he says then, answering her previous question. "Child-like. I used to think we were all dead before you."

Sakura's hands still for a moment, and she gauges the sincerity in his eyes. She wonders if the poison has already ensnared the cognitive functions in his brain.

"Not like innocent, but you're...well..." He struggles in his search, before his tired eyes marginally lighten, like they've caught onto something. "Cute."

" _Cute,_ " Sakura repeats, wrinkling her nose. She regrets the occupancy of the word in her mouth as much as this conversation.

Yuuto howls then, and she jumps. He's laughing—rough and throaty but so _honest_ that it steals the breath from her lungs. "Just like that!" He gasps then, before taken by a fit of loud and forceful coughs.

It's in this moment that Sakura confirms her suspicions. She likes Yuuto. She likes him very much.

Sakura places a chakra loaded palm on his chest and rubs her fingers against his warm skin soothingly. "Easy there," she says, her smile sincere and taunting. "Laughing to death might be a pleasant way to go, but I'm not done with you yet." His lips turn upwards and based on the pinch of his brow and heaves of his chest, the smile is painful for him to hold. But he wears it just the same.

"It would be, wouldn't it?" Yuuto muses with a hum. He looks at her with a fondness in his eyes. Sakura feels undeserving, but her heart pumps forcefully against her ribs, devouring the image with need. It reminds her too much of her Tousan to deny herself the painful pleasure of smiling back.

Finally, she brushes a loose pink strand from her face and begins to scribbles notes. He's doing worse, unsurprisingly. "We have a new medicine for you," Sakura says then, skimming over numbers in his chart. "It's not a cure, but it will slow the poison down."

She meets his eyes, and she can see the grave dullness has returned. For a moment all she feels is pure anguish for bringing it up. But professional as always, she keeps the rot from her voice. "A nurse will be coming in to administer it through an IV. You'll probably get a little nausea from it, and maybe a headache, but that should be the worst of it. If you feel anything else, let a staff member know immediately, okay?" He stiffly nods his consent.

"Will I see you again?" He asks then, and Sakura's self loathing increases incrementally, looking into those lonely eyes of his. She wants to stay, keep him company. But she has to go back to the lab so she can keep him _alive._ Her medicine isn't a cure. _Not good enough._

"Of course," she says. "You're my patient."

Yuuto doesn't look satisfied, the frown on his lips still neatly placed above the wrinkle on his chin. He nods anyway, stern and stiff. It's practiced—the nod of a shinobi after being handed a suicide mission. It makes her sick to her stomach.

"You're a strong man, Yuuto," Sakura says. "We're going to get through this. I promise." And she sees the weight on his shoulders marginally lift.

When she leaves, Sakura spends her walk to the lab pondering why life demands so much from the dying.

* * *

Sakura closes her eyes and tries to block out the rest of the world, her fingers splayed along her lower stomach, gently rubbing. She takes a deep breath, tries to coach herself through this the way she often does. _Just relax, Sakura. We can do this._

She considers picturing Kaito. He's handsome enough. And the thought is at least tangible, something written in the realm of possibility. But the concept is too strange with her not quite knowing the man. So Sakura pictures nothing.

She tries to recall that stranger from her most eerie and pleasant dreams. A man—an _Uchiha_ —she recalls. It's hard to remember when she's awake, but she's catalogued factual pieces the last time she woke up: Long, dark hair, _like Madara_ , with two locks wrapped in strips of cloth to frame a regal face. Bold, azure lines tracing his bottom eyelids. None of it stands out like his Sharingan.

She remembered thinking he was a diety, when he undressed her in her dreams, placed his hot mouth between her legs. He was a man of unmatched caliber, this Uchiha, who wore holy white robes and Sasuke's sinful smirk. And she remembers she had called him that, because he felt so much like her ex-teammate. She called him _Sasuke-kun—_ like he was ever hers.

Sakura can't quite grapple onto the memory of yearning in his eyes, but she imitates the way his hands had danced between her legs. It works, and soon enough, she's sighing at the feel of her fingers meeting her lower petals, parting them gently. With great care and patience, she rubs sweet friction along her folds, working herself up to her peak. It takes longer than it should, her climax evading her. She forcefully exhales, and moves her fingers faster, hoping the stimulation will bring her closer.

It doesn't, it leaves her feeling raw and distraught. She's becoming more antsy, feeling herself growing dry. Sakura steals a determined breath and struggles to focus. _I can do this._ She used to all the time, though she hardly remembers it. She breathes in and out, honing in on the pad of her finger as it grazes her sensitive nub. Then there must be progress because she's tossing her head to the side to mewl, stomach tight. Something coils inside and the moisture grows. She runs her fingers further down, probing her entrance gently with a single digit.

And then she feels a nukenin's cold hands on her body, a man possessed forcing himself on her. Inside her.

Her hand stills and her eyes snap open as a tremor crawls through her. She sighs, pulling her hand away to stare up at the whiteness of her ceiling. All traces of her high vaporize, as if it were never there. Sakura buries the feeling that she's been robbed of something, and with a heavy exhale, she sits up. She smears a frustrated tear off her cheek and crawls out of bed.

The stream from the showerhead is a bleak, liquid winter. Sakura turns the knob and makes it even colder. She has to use all her willpower to stay rooted in that spot, shivering. But that's okay because she's gotten good at doing things she doesn't want to. _It'll help,_ she thinks, honing in on the loud buzz in her head. Sakura rocks back and forth on her heel, nails pinching hard into her arms as she holds herself. It'll go away. It always does. It's just a matter of when.

His tongue was slimy, she remembers. Her nails scrape at her neck, following the path he had forever marked _You have her face._ The nin had said, wearing a delirious smile. Sakura's fingers move over her cheeks and wonder if they were ever really hers. Did that girl he saw die during her lifetime? He'd pushed inside her so painfully, so desperately—like he hated and loved her at once. Sakura wonders if she had always been wearing the face of a dead woman.

"Fuck!" Sakura mewls in pain, a burning sensation tearing her from the monochrome. She jerks from the water and her body shakes with the force of her gasps. She looks down at her trembling fingers, cheek throbbing. Her nails are stained with blood and chunks of skin. She's shaking bad and she's sure it's not because she's cold. She doesn't want this. A life defined by deaths. She sees okaasan's eyes—open, chapped lips slightly parted.

"Your kaasan doesn't hate you," Kizashi had told her, back when he was alive and full of mirth. He had sounded as if her suggestion was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "She's just had a hard life."

"Well, she must think I make it harder," Sakura said, clutching the fabric of his shirt, trying to keep the tears from her voice. Her pout was as obnoxious as her sadness was honest. Her otousan's large hand smoothed over her hair.

"She loves you, Sakura," Otousan said. "She has a hard time showing it, but she loves you. She's just had a hard life, that's all." His voice was mechanical, like this was a mantra he's spoken for years, though it's the first time Sakura had heard it.

"What happened to her?" Sakura asked. She felt Kizashi's arms tense.

He ran his fingers through her hair again and she felt the warmth of his other hand moving up and down her arm, trying to chase a chill away. "It's complicated," he had said, and when she looked up, he was staring forward at the wall. "But it's not your fault. I promise." He held her closer, and kissed her forehead.

She'd frowned and said nothing. She wanted to believe him, but found she couldn't.

Her youth didn't come with naivety and she knew her otousan was wrong. Okaasan looked at her for too long sometimes—like she was seeing through her. It was as if she had already made up her mind long ago.

She imagines if she had come to the bedroom before her mother had passed out, Mebuki would have spent her last breath whispering _You did this to me._ before her face became the mask of a dead thing too.

Sakura places her palm over her chest, willing her second heart, with it's second face, to stop beating. She moves back under the shower head, teeth chattering, skin frozen. And her blood is just droplets sprinkled in the water now. Sakura watches it dissolve, fading into liquid clarity. She shuts her eyes and listens to the rush of the cool stream.

 _It'll wash away,_ she thinks, feeling gore on her face and between her legs. It always does. It's just a matter of when.

* * *

 **A/N:** Can you guess who Sakura has been dreaming of?

Special thanks to Timafa on tumblr, who encouraged me to write in that transitional scene. Hopefully future chapters will read smoother for it. Also, might change the chapter title because i hate it loll


	10. Tesseract

"Your breasts are shrinking."

Sakura exhales, lungs constricting so deep and forceful it carries a satisfying pain. She stares at the menu in front of her, pretending to read. "Thanks, Sai."

"It is not a compliment." Sai says, staring at her face now. Sakura tilts her head enough for the coral of her hair to shield her expression. It doesn't work. "You're upset. What's wrong?"

Sakura considers lying, shrugging it off and handing him something aside from honesty. But she can remember Yuuto's cries that morning, how it synchronized to the tune of rodent screeches in her head. "My patient is going to die," Sakura says, body stiff against her even stiffer seat.

"The one from Kiri?" Sai asks. Sakura barely nods, feeling shitty about dumping this on Sai, who's probably scouring his brain for material he's read on consolation in friendships. She only agreed to coming to this meet up because she can't bear to stand her too quiet studio with her too loud thoughts.

Then his arms pulls her close, until her head falls into place in the notch between his shoulder and neck. The gesture is stiff and automated. But then Sai rests his chin on her head, and she feels the slight tremor of his fingers against her back and it's so refreshingly _human._ "I'm sorry," Sai says.

Sakura doesn't think, she just grips him fiercely and buries herself in his chest. She feels his breath hitch in surprise and she holds him tighter for it.

"Uhh...am I interrupting something?"

Sakura and Sai abruptly swing their heads to the right to see Naruto, who seats himself across from them.

"Ugly's patient is dying," Sai explains. Sakura regretfully pulls away from his warmth.

Naruto looks at him, incredulous. "Huh?" He turns to Sakura and studies her only for a moment before deciding to take Sai's words at face value. "Sakura-chan, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you kind of work in a hospital." He gives her a sympathetic look and proceeds gently, as if explaining the concept of mortality to a child. "People pretty much go there to die."

Sakura's not even angry at how belittling the statement is. She thinks even if she was stupid enough to not understand death by now, Naruto is handling it all with a clumsy superficiality. Because people don't go there to die, they go there to _live._

Sakura sighs and she's so exhausted her breath comes out in a shudder. "It's not an ordinary patient, Naruto." She palms her throbbing head. "This is a really important case. A clan from Kiri is about to go extinct." _And it's my fault._ She doesn't say this part aloud, but feels it all the same.

"Wait, what?" He asks, voice raspy and high pitched at once. "Like the massacre?"

" _No,_ " Sakura hisses, biting back the wrench of her gut. She feels Sai wince beside her, and she quietly scolds herself for the mini-outburst. "No. Not like the massacre," she says, voice softer. Nothing was like the massacre. The sole event was so fucked up that Sakura likes to think that it had been a rare lapse in fate's judgement and there would not be a repeat. She hates Konoha for it.

"Beautiful told me about the case. A clan has been poisoned and Sakura and the Godaime are leading the case to find an antidote," Sai says then. "I imagine it's a large concern for Konoha. Perhaps the shinobi world in general, if there's truly a poison that has no cure."

Naruto places his arms on the table, boldly leaning in as he meets Sakura's eyes. "Sakura-chan, don't give up. As long as they're still breathing, there's hope."

"He's been intubated," Sakura deadpans.

Sai makes a choking sound and Naruto's face wrinkles in confusion. "Huh?"

"Nothing, it doesn't matter," Sakura says, turning to look out the window. "You're right." He's not, but she's not very keen on debating the legitimacy of her despondence.

It's then that a server approaches their table, a handsome man with neat brown hair and dark eyes. "Ah, Uzumaki-sama," he greets, gaze locked on Naruto in a manner that reeked of contained excitement. "We are very pleased to have you here in our establishment. Are you and your friends ready to order?" Sakura would have scoffed at the obvious dismissal of her and Sai in favor of Naruto, if she wasn't already used to it.

"Uhh…" Naruto looks down at the table, eyes meeting the menu he hadn't realized was present until now.

"Well, **I** know what I want," She says, voice snarky and demanding of attention. "Oolong-hai with an extra shot of shochu."

Naruto makes a face at her then, half unimpressed, half annoyed. He turns to the waiter. "I'll have the same but no extra shot. And I'd like an order of gyudon too."

"Just a miso soup for me. Thank you," Sai says. The waiter politely nods, and says he'll be back with their orders shortly. Then Sai eyes his teammates. "I didn't realize day drinking was so popular in our squad."

"Guess you missed the memo." Sakura shrugs.

"Sakura, why aren't you eating?" Naruto asks, crossing his arms and giving her a stern, reprimanding look. She could cut the expression off his face and paste it onto a picture of her okaasan's and the image would still be seamless. She hopes he doesn't give that look to his kid.

"I ate earlier." Sakura doesn't bat a lash at the lie, and she suspects it's because she's not thinking of Naruto as himself right now.

"This lunch was planned," Sai says. Sakura pointedly ignores it.

"Why are you drinking?" Naruto doesn't miss a beat.

Sakura burns in heated anger. At him. At herself.

She waltzed right into this interrogation with a head too muddled to properly engage it, and if she doesn't hold sternly onto her rage, she's sure she'll double over in tears. A whole clan—a _family_ —is about to drop dead because of her. And Naruto never lets up.

"Why are _you?_ " Sakura spits, defiant. It's just then that their water comes back, placing their drinks before them, and informs them their meals would be ready soon. Sakura shamelessly gulps her liquor down. It feels like fire in her throat and acid in her empty stomach.

"Because I can only handle so much of the two of you," Naruto grumbles, sipping his own drink. Sakura knows he isn't talking about Sai.

"What's wrong? Meds aren't working?" Sakura cruelly jabs, and Naruto looks away, grimacing from either the alcohol or her words. Probably both. She's so angry and disappointed in herself already that she doesn't even care. "Who's career are you jeopardizing for him, huh? Neither you or Hinata work in the hospital."

Naruto doesn't say anything, but she sees his lips twitch. Sai's fist clenches too and Sakura doesn't fail to notice it. "Really?" She asks, far angrier than anyone should be in a public restaurant. "You're making _Ino_ do it? What the **fuck** , Naruto!"

Naruto looks painfully guilty and Sakura thinks he deserves every bit of it. "They're working," he says. "He's a lot better."

"He's _not._ They're just covering it up," Sakura says. She can see Sai's fingers tapping against the counter restlessly. She has to take another gulp, so she can try to forget her best friend might lose her job because Naruto is a reckless fucking idiot when it comes to Sasuke. "Numbing the mania. They can't fix him. He needs to see someone."

"You of all people should know why he can't do that," Naruto snaps. There's truth to that, but she doesn't choose to acknowledge it.

"You're not doing him any favors by enabling him, Naruto," Sakura says. "I hate how you do this—you baby him. He's not a kid anymore."

Naruto looks at her then, his expression resembling something like pity. "Needing help doesn't have an age limit, Sakura-chan."

Sakura laughs cynically, and it's an ugly sound even to her ears. "Your version of help is the most distorted shit I've ever seen." She glares back at him. "When Ino's upset and acting like a delusional harpy, I _hold_ her. Not beat her into submission, take her fucking arm off, then feed her drugs until she thinks how I want her to."

Naruto looks purely disgusted with her, and even high strung and inebriated, she absolutely agrees with that sentiment. "That's not even comparable!" He growls low. "And don't forget in the Land of Iron, you went after him alone to _'save him from himself'_ in your messed up version of helping too, so who's version is better?" He hisses.

Instantly, Sakura is burning holes through his head with the fervor of her glare. She'd been taken by her panic, her need to _choose_. Between her everything, her Sasuke-kun, or Konoha. Between her Sasuke-kun or _Naruto._

Sakura's red in the face, cheeks puffed and fists shaking and barely repressing the urge to vault one of them out the window. She hates Naruto for bringing that up, but she also knows it's nothing less than what she deserves.

"Fine!" Sakura exclaims, loud enough for the patrons around them to stare, if they weren't already. "We're all fucking psychotic! Team 7—the most elite and prestigious squad in Konoha's recent history—is rooted in masochism and complete dysfunction! Is that what you want to hear!?"

Naruto's eyes looks downright _pained_ but his brows furrow in a defiant anger. She can't blame him for it. She's being a snarky bitch and she knows it. These jabs aren't getting them anywhere, just piling onto the mountains of resentment. She feels sick.

"For the record," Sai begins, after a pause. "I think there is some truth to that statement." Sakura rolls her eyes.

The food comes then. Sakura can't tell if the timing is a ploy to deescalate the squabble or if the staff are simply done enjoying show. The smell is pungent and it takes everything she has to cover her mouth with her hand and avoid retching on the table.

When the waiter leaves, Naruto sighs. It's long and heavy, and _so_ tired. "I get why you're angry, Sakura-chan," he says. "I do." Naruto sits back and looks at his food the way she often looks at her paperwork. "But sometimes you feel further from me than Sasuke ever did." He looks back at her, impossibly miserable. "And I _hate_ it."

She looks out the window and bites back her tears. She palms her glass with her free hand, but doesn't drink more. It's only once Naruto takes his first bite and her pulse is steady she speaks. "I'm sorry." It's almost a whisper. "I don't mean to fight with you. It's just the hospital."

Naruto doesn't say anything and she supposes that's a good thing.

"If Naruto were to wean him off the medications," Sai says then, and his voice is soft, hopeful. She can hear his concern for Ino in it. "What would you recommend as an alternative?"

Sakura hesitates, before looking over at Naruto, who's watching her intently. She looks back at her nearly empty glass and thinks she's never been so hypocritical in her life. She has no convincing answers—no cure for life's unjust cruelties. "I guess, if he can't see a psychiatrist," she begins. "Maybe what Ino and I use to do, when we were hurting." She stares at the glass and into the spread of her reflection. The face that stares back is a stranger's.

"And that is?" Sai prompts.

Sakura turns her head and says, "Talk to headstones."

* * *

Sakura and Ino wake to a sky eclipsed in grey. The sun has yet to rise and they are silent as they move about, careful not to disturb the world's sleep.

Six years, Sakura thinks, is a long time to spend missing oneself.

She takes a bouquet of flowers out of Ino's fridge, and they move in silence outside of the apartment. They walk along the village streets with their chilled hands intertwined.

This is a yearly tradition for the two of them—visiting the cemetery on the anniversary of the Fourth Shinobi War. Almost all of Konoha's nin are present in the afternoon, so Ino and Sakura go in the mornings for privacy. Then they attend again with their friends later in the day.

It isn't completely empty in the mornings, with a few other nins having the same idea. Kakashi is always there too, though Sakura suspects he visits every day, not just on the anniversary. Still, it's reclusive enough to satisfy the two of them.

When they arrive, there's a white mist coming into fruition, opaquing the scene. It's beautifully surreal, and Sakura wonders if she's wandered into a place not yet meant for her. She half expects Kizashi to stride out of the fog, arms open wide to welcome her home.

They stop a little before Inoichi's headstone before Sakura places the softest of kisses on Ino's hand and lets it go. Ino's smile is tender, and she moves closer to her father's grave with graceful steps. Sakura busies herself in watching. Her eyes glide over headstones and lonely figures in the distance. She knows the white-haired one by Rin's grave is Kakashi. Sakura sees another, huddled on the ground beside Neji's stone. She thinks it might be Tenten, but she's never seen Tenten visit before. Sakura can only hope that it might be a sign that she's doing better.

There's several other figures she can't quite make out standing by graves she doesn't know the names to. Soon her eyes fall on a figure standing several meters in front of them. It's cloaked in a stark black and standing by—

 _Itachi's grave._

Sakura inhales sharply, her arms spasming against her side and instantly, she feels his familiar chakra flare to life. She mutters a curse because he's only responding to the jolt of hers. Ino looks over at her, and Sakura has to conjure a cheap smile and a dismissive wave of her hand. She'd rather die than take this away from Ino.

Sakura retreats a few feet, her back hitting the crisp bark of a dead and lonely tree. Her toes curl in her shoes and she stares forward, through the mist of her hard breaths. Chakra pulsing, she quietly lists off anatomy of the ear and wills her calm closer. She's almost thankful for the frigid weather in the heat of her panic.

 _He isn't moving,_ she thinks, her eyes suctioned to his ink and aura. None of them are.

They stand like that for a long time, and Sakura can start to feel her heart settle comfortably beneath her ribs. Then there's nothing grasping at her but the cold. She shrinks into herself, arms crossed and knees rubbing, she tucks her chin in. Her eyes never leave Sasuke.

He's taller than she remembers him being. His hair looks longer, and slightly more kempt too. If he wasn't standing by that notorious Uchiha grave, or had that so deeply melancholic chakra, she wonders if she would have been able to tell it was him at all. Something wet falls against her forehead and trickles down to her nose, a light drizzle joining the morning dew.

He won't hurt her here, her heart seems to know. He's too sad to.

Droplets become torrents, and a few figures in the dusk finally begin to move. But most remain rooted to the ground, one with the graves they've come to.

Sakura never takes her eyes off Sasuke, and though it's not fear propelling her attentions, she can't remove them. Some part of her needs this moment of him. She wonders if it's a nostalgic pity she feels for him right then. Or curiosity. And she terribly hopes it is. Because the alternative is that this part of her simply misses him too damn much.

The leafless tree does little to protect her, water drenching her through and mud rimming around her sandals. Sakura circulates her chakra to keep herself warm, but it doesn't help her much. She can freeze to death here, in this cemetery of greys and blues and phantoms. She wonders if she will be buried here, with the other shinobi.

Watching rain sodden Sasuke's hair, his proud shoulders, _No._ she decides. She doesn't deserve to be buried in the same place as the Uchiha. She belongs with civilian graves, and her civilian parents. Even if she isn't as innocent as them.

Suddenly, he steps forward, leaning down to level with the headstone before him. His hand drags from beneath the cape, and rises to touch his lips. They are still against his mouth for a moment, before moving to touch center of the stone in front of him.

His movements hold a quiet confidence, unperturbed by the rain, and Sakura is taken by that aristocratic grace. His fingers linger for several beats, digits sensually fanning out before the slicken hand slides back into his cloak. Then he stands, turns around and suddenly she can _see_ him.

He looks right at her, not sparing a glance in any other direction, not even Kakashi's. She feels her heart beat slightly faster and it hurts her lungs to breathe. He moves down a pebbled path and towards the graveyard entrance. It's a wet tap of sandal on cobblestone, so gentle that Sakura is sure she wouldn't even hear it if she hadn't been so acutely honed in on his presence. It slowly increases in volume, and it looks like he's going to pass right by before he swivels on his foot, stepping onto moss and towards her and Ino.

Sakura tries to control the way her teeth chatter and loosens the rigid curve in her spine. There's a soggy feeling of bubbles coiling in her stomach and they threaten to burst. Still, her eyes study him unabashedly and she watches him do the same.

He _is_ taller, she sees. So much taller than she remembers. His hair is running ink along his face and shoulders, nearly cloaking his Rinnegan if not for its ominous glow. His jaw is more defined, shoulders broader. He looks devilishly handsome, and damn right intimidating, which she supposes is nothing less than she expected. His gaze is fervent and suffocating, and somehow hypnotic with its maddening edge.

Sakura is smart, she thinks, to fear this man. And yet, in that moment, she doesn't.

She can hear the whistling of the wind against the rain, whipping up her pink locks. His smouldering eyes finally leave her, and Sakura exhales a restrained breath.

He walks past her, stops just shy of Ino's shoulder. He towers over her, and dignified as Ino's shoulders hold, she still looks small next to him. He places his hand on her shoulder, and Sakura can see the slight wrinkle of her clothes when he squeezes it. Ino never looks back at him, but her hand moves over his in a silent consideration.

There's something between them, Sakura realizes. Not terribly heavy, like the anvils threaded through Team 7, but some sort of acknowledgement is present. Sasuke wouldn't have bothered with such a reverent gesture for just anyone. Sakura doesn't wonder why Ino never mentioned it. She wouldn't have either.

Sasuke removes his hand and turns towards Sakura then. He stalks towards her with haunting grace, eyes so intense she has to fight her knees from buckling beneath the weight. The gales ring in her ears like the highest key of a piano. And it _cries_ for her.

She thinks something isn't right. Or perhaps something is _finally_ right. Soft, she thinks, looking to those haunting red-rimmed eyes. His gaze is soft. Like a loosening clay in her hands, she feels as if she can mold him with incrementally less resistance than the cement he once was. It empowers her, and despite being sickly pale and shaking, Sakura feels absolute—rippling with every version of herself. She _knows_ this Sasuke. He is both foreign and familiar, but intuitively she knows. And she thinks that he must know her too. It's because of this place, this cemetery—the ghosts. _They see._ And sometimes they show.

Sasuke stops just in front of her, and if he is tall beside Ino, he's a monolith by her. Sakura has to tilt her head up to maintain eye contact, even as raindrops fall onto her cheeks. His rinnegan glows faintly against the white of his skin and the black of his hair. It almost compliments the purpling skin beneath his eyes, deep and heavy. _Insomnia,_ she remembers Naruto saying. The charcoal in his right eye feels like an obsidian vacuum of dimensions as much as his left. Sakura stands, quiet and admiring this—him—after so many years. She finds it fitting to meet him here, in this graveyard, with rain coating them and the world fast asleep. It must be destined. She knows that she couldn't turn away here if she tried.

His lone arm rises from out of his thick cloak, and he finally turns that stifling gaze away to finger the fastening by his collar. She watches, transfixed as he slides it off his shoulders with long, lean fingers. Then she feels herself suddenly blanketed by hefty weight, comforting warmth, and the **very** familiar scent of sage.

It smacks her head right around, completely enveloping her senses in nostalgia. She _knows_ that scent. It's husky, soothing, and purely _Sasuke_. It was her absolute favorite fragrance at age 12 and she hasn't had a trace of it since that night that changed everything—when he had her falling against his chest, when her senses left her and Sasuke left her right along with them.

Sakura watches him fumble, securing his thick cloak on her much smaller shoulders with a single hand, before he pulls the hood over her head with a tenderness that makes her shiver. Sasuke makes a few more adjustments, his pale hand tucking a small lock of pink into the hood. There's a fleeting moment where she feels the warm touch of his fingers grazing her jaw as he pulls back. Sakura sees his hand twitch, and she's glad she's already shaking because it has her fighting a fit of convulsions. She watches his eyes tracing his own movements, before they find hers again.

There's a deep weight in those dilating pupils, and her chest constricts with uncanny warmth. It makes her lungs flare, and her stomach protests so violently at the liveliness in the air, she's practically waiting to puke out her entire skeleton. But then he breaks the eye contact, turning away. Instantly, she remembers how to breathe again.

Sakura waits until she hears his feet on the walkway before she turns to watch him leave. In precious moments he's nothing but a blot in the mist.

Sluggish, with a quivering breath, she moves to look ahead of her. Ino is still staring at Sasuke's receding figure. But far beyond her best friend, she can see Kakashi's looking right at her.

* * *

The next day, Sakura has breakfast.

It's small—a red apple that is all crisp and smooth against her teeth. She needs to take breaks between bites to fight waves of nausea, but it's enough.

Sakura looks out her bedroom window and watches snow fall. She feels an odd pang for a conversation, a raw one with too little words that run too deep. But Ino is preparing for a long mission and Sai has just come back from his own last night. She craves Ino's voice, soft and bold in one. They didn't get a chance to talk much yesterday, the air too somber for words. And it will be too long before she hears from her again.

Sakura thinks to see Naruto, but Naruto inevitably means Sasuke, and Sakura isn't ready. She can't decipher what happened that ghastly morning, between the raw permanence in his eyes and the melody of her pulse. She's taken by sudden amusia and finds she doesn't mind. It doesn't need to make sense. Nothing concerning him ever seemed to anyway. _Just let it be._

So she scrapes her mouth against the apple and her mind dazes in the softness of white outside her window. She breathes in the peace as much as she can, savors it like one does a love that is destined to die. It's only another hour before she'll be in the hospital, having what will undoubtedly be her hardest day of work yet.

It's curious weather to rain one day and then snow the next. Sakura wonders how long winter will last this year.

* * *

 **A/N:** ik ik it's the first real SS interaction and it's still just a tease. I'm sorry, I'll admit I like to give my audience metaphysical blue balls before I really indulge them lmao


	11. Medicate

"It's medically futile," Tsunade says, latex gloves slapping harshly as she all but rips them off. Sakura leans against the sink and hones in on the _plip plop_ of the leaky faucet behind her. She tries to swallow the burning feeling in her chest but finds her mouth is dry.

"There's no family to notify, is there?" Shizune asks. She is wringing her hands together again, as if it they will leak a miracle cure if she twists long enough.

Tsunade scoffs. "No." She tosses her gloves into a plastic bin and stares down at the linoleum tiles by Yuuto's bed, arms crossed. "Just Kakashi." The sporadic beeps of the EKG monitor cuts through the air—a haunting mantra. Sakura tries to block it out.

"Sakura-san, you're quiet," Shizune says.

"What's there to say?" Sakura asks, her eyes tracing the strands of damp, teal hair. She thinks of the white droplets that had drifted outside her bedroom window. "He'll be dead in a few hours."

Tsunade and Shizune don't respond to this. Shizune continues to fidget nervously and pretends to look over the chart. Tsunade clinically studies the body in front of her. Her face is a trained expression built from the purple beneath her eyes that harbour too many years of disappointment.

"We're fucked if we don't eventually find an antidote for this," she says.

"We will," Sakura says, her nails biting into her palms. The words come out with more passion than thought. She has Yuuto's smile playing in her head, the carefree one that was there before the more careful ones started to come. Now he's _this_ , and his clan will be no different. It's just like those two little orphan boys, kin lost like shogi pieces.

Sakura's hands are shaking. "I'll be in the lab," Sakura says, because she can't stare at Yuuto's lying in his white grave anymore and _something_ has got to give.

"S—Sakura-san," Shizune calls, half surprised, and half admonishing. "You should res—"

"Don't come back out until you have something," Tsunade interrupts, "I'm sick of this, we're running in circles." She shifts, meeting Sakura's eyes. "And I want you to be the one to meet with the Hokage."

Sakura's breath catches in her throat, not harsh enough to make a sound but enough for her to feel it. This is a _statement_ —an honor that speaks of her coming advancement.

But it feels like a punishment.

"Yes, shishou."

Sakura is barely present on her walk to the lab room, hardly registers the greyness of its features. Her head is swimming in white pulses, her steady hands possessed as they reach for beakers and measuring cups and not-so-docile lab rats. She has to do _something_. They're going to die. A whole clan. Another family. Lost to political warfare and this time there won't be a survivor. The guilt, **the guilt** —the pulsing. Her head roars. Her heart aches.

She _has_ to do something.

Her notes are sloppy but her solutions and procedures fastidious. _Cancer_ she thinks. This thing is like a blood cancer. It spreads quick and confuses the body. Her previous antidotes have all been much too gentle. She needs something aggressive, like chemotherapy, but maybe with more precision. She needs the patient to live through the treatment.

Eventually she injects a new solution into four new rats, writes copies more notes, and heads off into another lab where the first rat had been implanted with poison. She looks down and exhales forcefully, fingers trailing along an unbearably stiff and cold body.

Rigor mortis, she knows, staring into its dead, dead eyes. She remembers sliding the needle in its lithe body and embraces the guilt that comes with taking an innocent life. In truth, it lasted much longer than she thought it would. But it's dead all the same and it's her fault.

Sakura slides the eyelids shut and remembers she did this with her okaasan too. She whispers half apology, half prayer and turns off the lights before leaving the room.

* * *

When Sakura returns from her shift, she returns with a body made of lead. She wonders how the sheer weight doesn't have her plunging past layers of dirt and into the molten hellfire of the planet's mantle. She wouldn't mind it if it happened. Not right now.

She desperately wants to pass out on her bed, to strip off this cognizant despair and slip into blissful unawareness. But she worked with chemicals that were far too strong today. She doesn't bother to turn on any lights as she sheds off her clothes in the hall and slugs into the bathroom.

She has to pat around cold tiles to find the knob for the shower, but once it's on, Sakura finds she might even prefer bathing in darkness. She scrubs herself quick with full intention to leave fast, but the water is too warm and outside too cold. She sighs and tilts her head up to meet the warm spray, mind falling through the wormhole of _away_. Towards a graveyard and into the embrace of a black and white ghost.

 _Teme would do anything for you._ Naruto had said. _The bastard loves you!_ And Sakura was absolutely certain he was out of his mind to suggest such a thing. Sure, she had thought, maybe Sasuke _thinks_ he loves her. He's got so little left of what once was, he probably clings to all things familiar like a child to a mother's palm. She knows this and doesn't blame him for it. Still, that's not love. Not the sincere kind, anyway.

But that morning, she _saw_ it—felt it. The respectful distance, and yet, the tenderness and acknowledgement in his gaze. That instinctive _knowing,_ gut churning _._ Familiar, but foreign. _Powerful._

Sakura throws her head back and cackles at the absurdity of it all. The sound is disturbing and high pitched behind the rush of water, but it does not compare to this harrowing game of push and pull with the loves in her life. It's too bad Sasuke electrocuted her in a genjutsu. It's too bad her mother swallowed pills till she dropped dead. Oh, how she just wanted to drown in the white torpor. Anything to shut it off.

Sakura walks back into her bedroom dripping wet, too tired to bother finding a towel. Her eyes lazily take in the sight of her room, illuminated by the pale blue of her open windows. It's slightly messy, small appliances and clothes scattered here and there, which is a sure sign she's been doing better, despite it all.

Her eyes set on the black cloak sitting on the floor in the same place she had numbly tossed it in when she had returned to her apartment. It is the one article that seems out of place. It is ghastly, threatening, and somehow—in Sakura's exhausted mind—the most inviting thing in her room.

She lifts the cloak off the floor steadily, and is once again taken aback by the weight of the material. Languidly, she presses her nose to the fabric and is hit with the sweet smell of petrichor intertwined with a 12 year old genin she once knew. Sakura sighs into the cloth, and she could almost feel a sweeter version of Sasuke with her then, palming her waist. _No more games._

She lays down on her bed, wrapping the thick cloak around her nude form, and a slight breeze wafts into the room, chilling the air. Sakura bundles the black garment closer and it sticks to her wet skin like a coat of glue. She's so tired and so far that she sinks her face into the cloth and _imagines_. His powerful chakra hovering over hers, his stern, stern gaze, his deep musk—it all crawls through her then.

How did she used to think of him, again? With his chest bare, and eyes hooded, and that permanent frown on his face quirking in anticipation. She thinks he'd be easy, despite it all. He's been so starved of love, he couldn't say no. She would usurp him from his throne with a reverent kiss against his jaw and a cradle of his nape.

His eyes—those intense, meticulous eyes, that can rake through every emotion with a glance—is submerged in pure, unadulterated need.

 _Sakura,_ he says in her mind, almost teasingly. His hands trailing down the length of her side. _You're still mine, aren't you?_

"Always," she breathes. "Always yours."

 _Good._ And he kisses along her collar, shapes her breast against his palm before plucking at the peak. She likes him this way. Touching her lewdly, murmuring hotly and not even meaning to. His hand tucks itself between her legs, and a single digit drags her moisture up and down and _Gods,_ she _aches_ _._ Then he circles around her hidden gem and she is mewling.

 _Sakura, I love you too._ He'd suck on her lobe and move along her jaw. _Always have._ He whispers, and it didn't feel empty to think of it as real when she was younger. _Always will._ Sometimes this did. But everything dissolves when a finger manages to brush a puckering nub, making her cry out.

It's fucked up, Sakura knows. It's fucked up how she has a panic attack over him one night, then masturbates to the thought of him the next. But as Sakura imagines his eyes on her, his hand on her breast and his finger strumming her sweetly instead of her own, she can't get herself to care. _She_ is too fucked up. Too fucked up and too tired and she never gets wet this fast, and _gods_ does it feel so **good**. She _wants_ him. She _needs_ him.

In moments she's gasping and moaning, gripping his cloak as her hips buck off the bed. Her hand spasms as she moves her fingers harder and faster. Then her mind blanks and her back arches.

And Sakura swears she can _feel_ him then—his chakra spasming with hers, his eyes ablaze and roaming, his sage scent invading her. She can taste the burden of eternity on his tongue, she can hear his desperation inside his (no doubt) stifled grunts and hot breath and— _oh how we need this_ —him **finally** filling that persistent hollowness as he sinks into her. Her hips buck into her hand, her lips part to cry nonsense.

Her first orgasm violently tears through her, and she is so starved and needy, she moves a single finger in and out of her to get started on a second. She only tires out as her fourth ripples through her—the tips of her fingers, her toes, and her heavy heart. She buries her face in the cloak then, gasping for air against the thick material, mind swimming in an immortal circle.

It's the moon that she sees first, when her senses resurface. A full moon painted in the sky with rich yellows and whites. And Sakura doesn't think about what she's just done because she doesn't want to. But there's remnants of Sasuke everywhere, and it's haunting and easing all at once.

The moon doesn't look right. Too white. Too yellow. It's skewed through the window. _Genjutsu,_ she thinks. _No. Paranoid._ It's the adrenaline—the orgasm. _You're being paranoid._ But she can't help it.

Sluggish, Sakura raises a sticky hand up towards her face, still panting from the aftermath of her last climax. Her eyes focus on one particular tree, black bark shadowed in the foliage. Two fingers stretch out, and the others curl in—the hand sign for ram, but she doesn't circulate her chakra. She inhales against the cloak again, reminds herself it's okay. _Baby steps. We'll check just this once._ (She's getting better, she thinks, but isn't sure.) A breeze slips through the night and then her chakra pulses. _Kai!_

 _..._ nothing.

Sakura's hand drops to fist into Sasuke's cloak, relieved. She catches her breath, shuts her eyes, and lulls away.

* * *

.

.

.

And she dreams of **that** strange man again.

"And here you call _me_ the ridiculous one," she says, in a body that feels like a distant home, sprawled along lush green beside him. The sun is molten hot, but the draft of wind settles cool and perfect. She can see it sweeping up the loose tresses of his dark fringe. "How could you ask for that? I'm surprised he didn't behead you."

"I can have whatever I want," he says, calm and matter-of-fact. "I'm a deva."

She stares up, thinking how every inch of him falls in tandem with his words. The blase confidence and mystic beauty echoes all over.

"How arrogant of you." She stretches her arms out and sighs, heavy and dramatic, and frought with a taunting quality. "Will you ever learn?"

"Guess not," he says, in utter apathy. For a debilitating moment, she thinks that maybe she's offended him. But then she turns and sees his coy smile.

His slender fingers roam over the fine green blades, then plucks a flower out of the field. "But if it's _so important_ I learn philosophies of complacency, I'll let you teach me." His lips thin, although she thinks he might be trying not to smile, Sharingan eyes pretending to study pink petals.

She snorts. "How gracious of you," she mocks, propping up on her elbows to face him properly. "And it's _not_ complacency. It's peace," she says, "There's a difference. And it's a difficult way of life even for someone as humble as me." She ignores his mocking scoff. "You're so stubborn, it would take more lifetimes than I have to offer for you to learn such a thing."

"I'll just have to give you some of mine, then." He tucks the small flower neatly in her hair, brushes her dark tresses out of her face.

"I hope not. You're a descendent of Kaguya," she says, slides a hand to pet the plush petals on her head in approval. It feels soft, velvety. "No matter the era, you're our guardian. We need you."

"I didn't realize I requested a novice's cryptic reading of my soul," he says, and his smile only grows when she tilts her chin up and pops out a pink tongue. "Well, if that's the case, there's always my otouto," he says, looking back up towards the sky. "Dull-witted as he can be, I think he could carry the torth in my absence."

"Ah, your brother." She sighs, closing her eyes and nuzzles her face in the mossy grass. The smell is fresh, and pollinated and she loves it. Almost as much as she loves the sound of his voice. "I'm not so sure. He is wonderful, but he is not you."

He scoffs. "He is _not_ wonderful."

She giggles light and edges close enough to press against his leg. When she looks at his face she sees a beacon of tenderness in his gaze. It's beautiful, shining inside the contrast of ruby eyes and the sapphire liner coating his bottom lids. "Those gifted eyes give you away, my deva. He is dear to you."

He looks down at her then, stares for two beats too long, and reaches to trace the curve of her cheek. " _You_ are dear to me," he breathes.

She sighs in mock disappointment in his grasp. "And we have come full circle," she says, fingers reaching to explore the edges of his yukata. "With you wanting that which can't be had."

"Oh?" He asks, then lowers himself so dangerously close, his hand sliding down the curve of her jaw, tilts her chin just enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath on her lips. He whispers, low and husky, "Are you not to be had?"

Her hands knot in his white yukata. He's so close that maybe she can't see his mouth, but she sees the mischevious smile in the creases of his taunting eyes. "N-no." She gulps, before regaining her footing. "I'm struggling to get away from one man, I'm not going to tether myself to another," she says, defiant, before pushing against his chest with a playful shove. "And certainly not to one as _impossible_ as you!"

His smile widens incrementally. "I beg to differ." He brushes his warm fingers along a sliver of her exposed collar. "I think you want this _impossible_ man. And who better to suit an impossible woman?"

She laughs. "Is this how you court, my deva? You Ōtsutsuki have awful etiquette."

He hums before lying backwards, pulls her close enough for her to meet the heat of him. "Another subject you'll need to teach me," he murmurs into her hair. "Maybe you should ask your otousan to relieve you from that busy schedule."

"Oh yeah?" she asks. "On what pretense? I don't think he'll approve if I tell him it's to flirt with an arrogant ass."

"International relations," he suggests.

"Mmm," she sighs contentedly, inhaling the scent of sage. "If only," she says. "Gods, I really miss you all the time. I wish we could steal more of these moments."

She feels him stiffen, before he eases her off him and sits up again. His voice is still soft, despite the sudden density in his tone. "You know we can."

She frowns. The ground feels rougher than before, and almost painful compared to the contrast of his warm body. She turns from him and stares at the field of flowers, not feeling a single one. "Not this again."

"I'm not going to stop," he says, and when she steals a glance, she sees him staring at her with a frightening, wolfish quality. She can't tell if he wants to violently attack her or slowly undress her. Probably both.

"Another token of your stubbornness, huh?" she says, meeting the haughty challenge in his voice.

"My name and power is known everywhere. Fool that Puloman is, he won't say no if I asked for your hand. **You're** the one who invites me on these little trips, only to say you don't want me," he says, sounding calm, but she knows he's frothing at the mouth with a well fermented bitterness. His eyes always give him away. "And you won't even give me a _reason_."

"Has it ever occurred to you that some matters are private?" She asks, before sitting up, shoulders squared and arms crossed. "I'm not doing this again. It's none of your concern, Ind-"

"It _is,_ " he hisses, leaning forward. His arms shake, as if they're holding back from reaching forward. " _You_ are my concern. I'd have dropped this ages ago if it wasn't _absurdly_ obvious that you're not refusing me because you actually want to."

"Gods, you really are arrogant," she says, feeling hot all over and not in a good way.

"Are you denying it?" He asks, lifting a short brow.

She thinks to spit at him. She hates how sure of himself he is, how there isn't a pinch of vulnerability in his expression because he's so damn dogged in his convictions.

But it's why she loves him too.

And she remembers that more and more the longer she stares at that beautiful, regal face. "No," she finally says. "I want you—a fact I wish I could refute."

She sees the tension in his jaw slacken, and then his arms finally come to palm her cheeks on each side. His fingers are callous but perturbingly gentle. "Just _tell_ me," he says, and leans his head close. Close enough for her to feel his hot breath fanning against her mouth. "Tell me, and I will fix it. I am no one's guardian more than yours."

She melts into his touch, more than she expects to. The tension rolls out with her words, the tumult of years sitting on the tip of her tongue. "My imouto is everything to me," she says. "Don't you understand? You have a little one too. I can't leave her there with him," she pauses, searching, "She's…she's not like me. She's _good._ "

He frowns, pulls his right hand away to gently wind his fingers through her clenched fist. "You haven't been telling me everything."

"I thought you would have figured it out," she murmurs, breaking away from that hot look in his red eyes. "A cruel king is a cruel king. Maybe we have privileges, but we are his subjects too."

"You are not subjects, you are family."

"Some would argue there's no difference."

" _Some,"_ he parrots mockingly, turns his head away, "the only person who thinks that is my idiot otouto."

She lets out a breath that is as much amusement as it is relief, before sinking forward into his chest. "I happen to agree with him, you know." He ignores that.

"I guess I have no choice," he mumbles, rubs her arms repetitively, like he's trying to keep her warm. "I'll have to take you both."

She snorts. "Still as ambitious as ever," she says. "What will you do? Abduct us? You would start a war."

"I wouldn't _abduct_ you," he scoffs. "I have some tact, you know."

"So a diplomatic approach then? Would you marry the two of us?" She hears him nearly choke on his spit, his chest rumbling as he clears his throat. "I suppose you could," she muses, and she fingers the pale skin around his neck, palms his nape soothingly. "Polygamy isn't celebrated in your culture, nor is incest. Your otousan would probably have your head for it. But you could."

"Shut up," he grunts, before tenderly pressing his lips to her temple. The pressure lingers sweetly before he pulls away. Her stomach is in knots. "I'll find a way."

She hums, trying to hide the heat in her cheeks by keeping close to his chest. "You and your circles," she chides, tracing rings on his skin—a sore excuse to touch him.

He takes her hand in his, lifts to fit the back of her fingers against reverent lips. "All for you, my love," he teases, mouth trailing over to the underside of her small hand. She feels him smile against her palm. "All for you."

* * *

The meeting should be more formal than this. But they're Team 7, with experiences as loving and loaded as they come, and it extinguishes all the facades of etiquette. Kakashi looks exhausted as ever, staring blankly at a piece of paper in front of his desk. Naruto, who has nothing better to do than pretend to prepare for his inevitable promotion to Hokage, is slurping noodles by his desk.

Sakura helps herself to a corner by the window, just far enough so she doesn't have to smell the heavy broth of his ramen. "Yuuto Ashi is dead," she says.

Kakashi doesn't look at her, but his body is tense all over. If she thought he wasn't reading the paperwork in front of him earlier, she's sure of it now. "When did he pass?" he asks and his voice is even enough to fool most.

"This morning," Sakura says. "We're still working on the antidote."

Naruto, for once, is quiet, occupying his mouth with clumps of noodles. His eyes are keen, attentive to his sensei more than his teammate. Kakashi folds his fingers together and leans back on his chair. "Do you think you're close?" He asks.

Sakura hesitates, before her eyes fall on her lap. She gently slides her hand along her thigh, smoothing her skirt instead of wrinkling it with her distraught. "I always think I'm close," Sakura says, and she can't quite manage to keep the regret from her voice. "But it's more like an infection than a poison. Every time I think I'm finally going to kill it, it adapts."

"Hm," Kakashi hums in mock nonchalance, despite the quiet terror in his eyes. "This is more serious than I thought."

"This is connected to the incidents in Suna, isn't it?" Sakura asks then. "And that mission you were going to put me on with Sasuke too."

There's the briefest moment of hesitation before Kakashi nods. "Yes," he says. "That's what I'm worried about."

"Ah don't worry about him," Naruto chimes in with a grumble. "With that damn Susanoo and the Rinnegan, nothing can kill that bastard."

"Naruto," Sakura says gently. It's not that she disagrees with him, because she's absolutely certain both of her original teammates are irrationally and disturbingly impervious in battle. But neither of those stated attributes make one immune to toxins and she can't help but ask, "Do you have any concept of how poison works?"

The jinchuruuki scowls. Kakashi turns to Sakura then. "What should I tell the Mizukage?" he asks. "Should they be prepared to lose a clan?" She knows his question isn't meant to be accusing, but it feels like it is. She hears it in Naruto's loud, forceful gulp.

Sakura looks out the window. "Yes," she says. She's so close she can see the snowflakes coming down, sticking to the pane like tiny white spiders. "Even if we find an antidote, I don't think it'll come fast enough to save them."

Kakashi says nothing for a long moment, but she sees him turning away in her peripheral. "I see." The subtle sorrow in his voice tells her he is as disheartened as she feels. Sakura places a finger on the glass just where a snowflake has landed, as if to melt with it.

"Still, don't let up or postpone this project. Under no circumstances." Kakashi says with a thick authority that calls her attention back onto him. "The Ashi may not make it, but that poison will inevitably show up again. Hopefully we'll be ready next time."

Sakura nods, head dizzy at the prospect. She's considered this before, of course. But the pressure to find a cure has never felt greater. The quivers in her stomach are punishing and she begs to be good enough this one time. "Of course, sensei."

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan," Naruto gleams, voice vibrant. "You'll figure it out." He says it with such blaze confidence, if it were anyone else she'd be downright confused.

"He's right," Kakashi says, "You're the best poison expert in all five nations." Sakura has to bite back a retort, because that's not true if someone has already bested her. She wishes they would just stop trying to hand her false confidence. The compliments skin her alive.

"We have a medicine," Sakura says, unsure whether to fight the hesitation in her voice because this piece of information is nothing but appeasement and she is all too aware of it. "It's not a cure, but it'll slow the venom down. We can send them as much as they need, the materials are easy to gather."

Kakashi looks at her, pensive, before seeming to come to a decision and nodding. "Last I heard there were about twenty clansmen left. Assuming they're still alive, when can this medicine be ready to ship by?"

Twenty. She's not surprised to hear that.

"Tonight." Sakura says. It will be a hassle, but it's the least she can do. "It won't make a difference in the outcome," She says this with a raw and agonizing certainty. "But it's something."

"I assumed as much," Kakashi says. "Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be worth the resources," he admits. "But...just in case."

"Just in case," Sakura echoes.

Naruto grumbles, gripping his ramen bowl so hard it looks like it'll break from the pressure. "Geez, _under normal circumstances?_ What the hell, Kaka-sensei! You should _always_ try."

For a moment, Kakashi is silent, and Sakura catches the slight tremor of his fingers before they smooth out along thin papers. "I do, Naruto." He says, and there is a subtle sadness in his voice, almost reverent. "We always do."

Naruto isn't quite sure what to say, his mouth curves strangely before he stuffs it with more ramen.

When Sakura looks back at her sensei, she sees him studying her. It's neatly intense and focused, and this is one of the handful of traits that make him the most similar to Sasuke. It's the worst among them, in her opinion.

Sakura swallows her nudity and says, "I'll have the medicine packaged and ready by 9pm, if that works."

Kakashi stares blankly, holding her captive for a single moment longer before tenderly crinkling an eye. "Perfect. I'll send someone over at 9 then."

Sakura nods, and stands, brushing the slight shake of her hands over her skirt. "Well, I guess I should get to it then," she says.

Kakashi nods. "Thank you for coming in, Sakura. Daunting as this news was, I'm glad I got to hear it from you, at the very least." His eyes are as sweet as his words, and she can tell he means it.

Sakura nods and smiles with a tender and grace that is nearly foreign to her face. "Thank you, sensei," she murmurs.

"Will you two stop flirting?" Naruto says with a scowl. "You always do this!"

She can see Kakashi smirking under the mask. "Maybe I would flirt with you too if you were a little easier on the eyes," Kakashi says, and Naruto makes mock gagging noises. "And I'm kicking you out too, today. Sorry, but there's an omen about having too many blondes in one building, and we're about to reach capacity when the secretary comes back in."

"Pffft, yeah right," Naruto says, though stands anyway. He tosses his empty ramen bowl. "You probably just want some alone time to jerk it after seeing Sakura-chan in that tight skirt."

"Naruto!" Sakura admonishes, horrified. Kakashi merely chuckles, entirely amused before they both leave with a tender goodbye.

Sakura and Naruto are halfway down the hall before rounding on a familiar chakra signature. When they turn the corner, it's to see Hinata.

She's just standing there, eyes pasted to the floor, wide-eyed and red in the face. Her lips are terribly swollen, chewed up between pearly teeth.

"H-Hinata?" Sakura asks, watching the Hyuga's white hands cradle her abdomen like it is going to fall out any second.

Naruto is in front of her in an instant, pulling her close, his face hard and soft at once. "Hinata-chan, what happened?"

"I-I-..." Hinata stutters, trembling everywhere, and Sakura thinks she might as well be a 12 year old genin with no sense of self or security all over again. "I d-didn't know what t-to do...I…S-so I came …here. I knew you w-were here so..I..came."

Sakura places her hand on Hinata's shoulder and rubs comfortingly, "It's okay. We're here. We got you, Hinata."

Naruto punctuates her words, gripping his wife closer to his chest and running a bandaged hand through her silk hair, tilting her head enough for her eyes to find his. "What is it?" he asks gently. "What happened?"

"Naruto, I—" Hinata chokes on oncoming tears, but she turns and looks at Sakura then. White eyes _cry_ out to her green, pleading— **begging** —on the last legs of a coveted denial. "I'm bleeding."

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm really sorry, I know this update took long. It's partially because this chapter was a pain in the ass to edit, but mostly because life just sucker punched me into the fucking twilight zone. It's insane how much can go wrong in only a few days.

I hope y'all find it worth the wait, this chapter originally went through a lot of drafts because of that dream sequence. I had so much trouble with it and I still really hate it but fuck it

The next chapter was a personal favorite for awhile, partially because I have an uncanny love for writing unorthodox shit lol. I promise to have that one out as scheduled, since it shouldn't be nearly as much editing. We're gonna be checking in with Sasuke again ! :)


	12. Uchiha Mausoleum

Sasuke wears his ghosts like corpses wear worms and maggots. He hates them, the way they invade his body, mind, heart—the way he can feel them squirming through, hollowing him out. But he needs them, as all bodies eventually do. To return, he thinks, would be a blessing.

Because he meanders the world in a state of indefinite purgatory—half here and half there. He does this in a cold motel room after vomiting his latest nightmare. There's blood in the sink too, and he doesn't remember how it got there (but he can guess.)

He paces around on oak floorboards that look like perfect replicas of the ones his parents had died on. He stares at the protrusion of bone beneath the stretch of skin on his white, lightly veined feet. He tries not to think of Itachi's corpse and how it was also white and lightly veined.

Sasuke has been trying to get better these days. He would like to be happy—a promise held tight in the small hands of a pink haired sprite from years and years ago. He didn't want it back then, and didn't deserve it either. Deserves it even less now. And yet, he yearns.

He desires to neatly tuck away his dead kin in the crescent of his disintegrated left palm, longs to restore with his right. Maybe meet Kakashi's hand in a shake, a formal yet fond acknowledgement. Perhaps slap his palm against Naruto's, bask in the slight sting of their silent victory. Auspiciously knit his fingers between Sakura's, smooth his thumb over a knuckle in a long fermented adoration.

Instead, it smears wetness from his face, and blood from the rim of the sink. Instead, he thinks of Itachi.

He thinks of millstones tethering his brother to duplicity, the lives of a village forever separating them from each other. Sasuke hates himself for falling for the facade. Of course he knew at the time there were absent pieces in a grim puzzle. But he had been asking the wrong questions, grieving in the wrong gradient of injustice. It seems Itachi was fated to be his immortalized eidolon—forever escaping his grasp.

And Sasuke misses his niisan. Miss. Like he strung his bow but the arrow flew past the swine and instead impaled his every chance to do right by Itachi. Sasuke would do anything to turn back that arrow, would do anything to save his brother's contused heart.

The regret is a constant yearning collapsing on his chest, muddling his head with an aching nostalgia for another life where everything fell together in a repetitive motion instead of falling apart. A life where his brother never scrambled his head and left him deeply mislead and so very alone.

And Sasuke feels the fragments in every empty crevice of this motel room. _Alone._

The metallic knobs of the shower are cold under his quivering fingers. The spray of the water is unpleasantly cool too, but he doesn't bother to change it. The chill is easier on his wounds.

He washes himself with a foul, astringent soap until he rusts. The tiles of the shower are cracked, archaic, just like the floors. The motel features are stark and vivid and bring him back to the phantoms of his clan. Sasuke traces at the cracks in the tiles, like a small hand once traced the rings of a dead tree in the floorboards. He remembers the swirls meeting his parents' blood. He remembers strangers washing his body, and even their showers smelled like antiseptic. He stares until he retches into the tub drain where blotches of browns and yellows mix with the red. He quietly notes to avoid this motel.

Sasuke came back because he needed familiarity again. Not this kind of familiarity—not old architecture, or blank lapses in his memory before he's greeted with violence unearthed from the rifts in his head. He needs warmth of a familiar affection again—the warmth of his Team 7. Except he's come to realize that Team 7 isn't quite Team 7 anymore and he knows it's his fault. He misses them the same way he once missed Itachi—they just slipped through his fingers.

Kakashi is locked up in the Hokage's office these days. Maybe this isn't too much of a problem—Sasuke wouldn't know what to say to him anyway. But there's a whistling regret between them. Kakashi wishes he was a better sensei. Sasuke wishes he was a better student.

The remorse is varnished with their daily encounters in the town graveyard to revisit their greatest failures. Always at the same time, just before sunrise. They don't walk together, or even look at each other really—but there's a quiet confession between them. Sometimes it's comforting, the way they speak without speaking. But usually it's just unsettling, like he's been living in the wrong side of the mirror.

The missing is far worse with Naruto, despite the fact that they speak more often. They hang out at Ichiraku's every now and then but things aren't the same. Fate has had it that Sasuke would miss the interim of them growing up in mutual brotherhood. Now they're older, burdened by expectations beyond themselves. And Naruto feels worlds apart.

Sometimes Sasuke visits Naruto at his house, though he tries to avoid it. It doesn't matter that Naruto tries to bribe him with his favorite dishes and tomatoes. It's all just ash in his mouth when he watches the way Naruto smiles at Hinata. It's bittersweet, because Naruto's love is his too, and vicariously, he's happy. This is the slow accumulation of everything they had both always wanted. But outside of their cosmic union, it's fatal to watch. Because **this** is what he has forfeited. **This** is what Naruto built and Sasuke destroyed: family.

He's remorseful, and angry, and the resentment that storms through him makes him want to kill the both of them all over again. (Itachi was white, lying slack with the rubble of their clan's collapse. Sakura won't even _talk_ to him.)

He doesn't mean to be. Naruto deserves what he has—every last bit of it, and Sasuke knows this. The jinchuuruki has done so much, _saved_ so much. But Naruto was blessed in so many ways he wasn't. Yes, he had it hard—Naruto lost his parents too. But he didn't see them piled in a heap of blood, didn't see the hollow through their eyes when his prized sibling cleaved through them. He didn't have a cursed soul, or a heritage of yearning leading him astray. Naruto didn't know the desperation to be enough despite the bodies—to be enough **for** the bodies. And they were **everywhere** — _fuckfuckfuck, what is Kabuto doing_ — _don'tthinkaboutitdon'tlistendon'tthink_ — _but oh gods what is he **doing**?_ No, Naruto had _choice_ _._ Sasuke had eons of rage, the divine wrath of a second-handed punishment, and a macabre screenplay of mock volition. _. YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING, YOU DON'T KNOW_ —

Naruto just looks at him with that soft resignation, wearing pity.

The cerulean iris torpedos Sasuke from a fiery wrath to the infernos of madness. Naruto is his soul brother, and there's a terrifying truth lying in that sad gaze. Sasuke hates it. He'll give everything to destroy that image. _Pity._ He doesn't want to be a victim. He refuses. _Never again._ Skin ablaze, chest made of lead, and then his mind blanks.

Then he's awake, panting and hurting and writhing in his own blood. Like Naruto, but Naruto is smiling in that way he always does before he cracks a joke and repairs what Sasuke has done. _Again_.

Sasuke regrets it every time.

He flounders in his disappointments, ossified failures weighing on him like Fugaku's expectations once did. Now he gets to disappoint the whole clan. And Sasuke aches to tell them he's sorry. He never really deserved to bear the noble brand of _Uchiha,_ couldn't live up to the cost of their lives. But there's no one else to do it now and he's sorry.

And in moments like these, where he's begging for restoration of his blood, his distraught soul, he thinks of her.

She moved through him just as powerfully, yet so differently from Naruto. Where the golden boy was bright, shrugging off every obstacle with a flap of golden, gilded wings, Sakura was a gentle animal of terra, curiously exploring the place where vegetation meets the blue. And if she dipped her toes low enough, he could feel her grounding warmth brush against the depths of his cool underworld.

The knob is cold when he shuts the shower off, but he can't feel it. His head drums with that last missing. He had played and replayed every encounter between them in his head. Where did he go wrong? he had wondered stupidly, before realizing, Where did he ever go right?

But which transgression was the tipping point? When did she decide she'd be better off without him? Yes, she must have always known, but when did she _choose?_

It was Naruto, fuck, he _knows_ it was Naruto. No, Naruto wouldn't do that. The dobe wanted their family whole. It was Ino. It was her parents—her _fucking_ mother. He knew he should have done her in before she— _Nonono_

It was him, it was **him** and he deserves it. He has no justification to lament. He asked for this. In so many ways, even after they brought him back. Sasuke remembers. He remembers and he wishes he didn't.

"I don't want to see you like this," he had said, the shell of a man who wanted more. He'd only been solid in contrition and desperation when Naruto took him out of the dark. Still, he would never be low enough to drag Sakura down with him. Not like that. Never like that.

"Like what?" Sakura had asked, pink brows and cherry lips disgruntled. She'd been feigning innocence like she'd always done with him. It wouldn't fool him this time. She knows. He _knows_ she knows.

"I don't want your forgiveness," He said it bluntly and he meant it down to the marrow of his bone. Her smiles were all rigid and laced with anguish—not at all like the smiles for Naruto, for Kakashi, for anyone but him. He would rather she spit in his face and tell him to go to hell than wear that repulsive expression. It made him _ache._

"W-what do you mean?" Her voice quivered, and her eyes trembled too. She was scared to be revealed and Sasuke thought _Good._ Because it was about damn time. He was sick of them carrying his burdens.

"It's disgusting and I don't want it." He made a point not to look in her direction.

There was a silence and some part of Sasuke could hear his heart protesting beyond the wild thumps. But he was too contained to care. Besides, he was certain he'd broken through her altruistic mask and he believed that to be a victory.

And he was right, the bitterness swimming between the crack in her words. "Oh, but it's perfectly fine when it comes from Naruto, right?"

"You're not Naruto." He said, and he stared right into her eyes for this because he was _never_ allowed reprieve from this truth. He can't forget the red-hot passion swimming in bleary viridian. It haunts him in a different way than his dead kin.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Sakura asked, and his eyes traced the pretty wave of her pouting lip. "What makes it so different with him? Why is it acceptable for him but with me it's _disgusting?_ " He had to turn his head away again. It was easier to just listen. Her voice was more confident than the trembles of her hands.

"He doesn't force it," Sasuke said. "It's cleaner."

There was a quiet. And then:

"Cleaner," she repeated, voice strained and so subtly dark. He found his head riveting to see her but her posture was turned away, shrunken in on itself, and looking fucking _miserable_.

He thought the reaction was entirely unprecedented, but that didn't stop the sand pit from swallowing him in regret for it. An apology, or at least a half-assed excuse, was on the tip of his tongue, but then she was bolting away, a wet whimper left like a footprint on the cold cement.

He expected Naruto to give him shit for it, but the jinchuuriki seemed entirely unaware. Sakura didn't avoid him for long either. Soon enough, she was all nerves, and abhorrent smiles again, so skittish he could hardly believe it. It strangled him and he badly wanted to confront her again but he also just needed to get the hell away. Naruto and Sakura were too good for him, always were. And Sasuke felt so out of place, so out of mind.

He knows he still is. The only difference between then and now is that he just doesn't care anymore. He doesn't care if he's not good enough, because he _wants_ to be. He just wants them again. He wants Naruto's goofiness, and Kakashi's lateness, and Sakura's sweet affections. It was never perfect, but it was _his_ , and he'd give anything to just **have** again. He's been missing for _so_ long.

But _Sakura..._

Sakura must have finally gave in to his petulant, bitter requests. She's nowhere to be found.

Sasuke slings clothes onto his wet skin and it sticks uncomfortably. The sensations are lost on the twitch of his fingers, a feral need to scrape his flesh off in the confines of this stale, archaic room. Considerate, he leaves his weapons when he closes the door.

He thought he could go through life without them. He'd die with his brother and complete the cycle with a casual shrug and a silent scream. But Sasuke knows himself better these days. So he's not surprised to see himself too alive and hopelessly frantic about seeing Sakura again. The longing was always there when it came to her. Not that she was perfect. Sasuke certainly meant it when he called her annoying. She was always trying to babble her anxiety away, rambling about how irritating her okaasan was, and it made him fume because at least she _had_ a kaasan.

But she was also exceptionally brave when she acted on instinct—on passion. And this was the kernel of Sasuke's fears. Because it was this instinct, this passion, that spoke to him in isolated moments. Her voice had been so raw, possessed with something otherworldly when she called his name. She loved him. And it bewildered him because how the hell could a 12 year old girl know that? _Feel_ that? And for a boy as displaced as him?

He wanted to vehemently deny all of it, wash his hands of this feeling, this breed of cancer infecting his every thought since the massacre. It was the flames in her eyes—the same flames that warmed the beats in his chest—that drove him to desperation. Missing his mother, his father, his brother, _his brother_ —it was love that provoked him to wage war on himself. And he hated the idea of Sakura enduring that too. She was better off without that crippling feeling—without him.

So when Sasuke left her on a bench on a night much too cold for either of them, he only thought about how beautiful she was, how agonizingly wonderful her weight felt in his arms and— _This is why I have to go._ He would give every life he has before he let Itachi poke holes through her too.

He had run his fingers through the silkiness of her hair and could only loathe those pretty tresses—that exotic pale pink. Sasuke had never seen anything like it. It was so predictably alluring that he hated how he fell for it too. Had Sasuke's paranoia not wrenched him away when he heard the screech of either bird or bat, he was sure he would have greedily stolen her first kiss that night. The liquid yearning demanded he did.

Now he's stalking up and down Konoha's streets in the dead of night like a mad man and he feels like one too. His stomach is eating itself again, his nails are chewed up to their bloody nailbed, and he's scouring the civilian villages, looking for that soft green chakra.

 _Just wait,_ Naruto had said. _She'll come. Just give her time._ But he can't. He tried and he just can't so fuck Naruto's shitty advice because it's not like he ever abided to patience either. It's been too long. Too damn long.

He can recall the first time that warm chakra grazed his senses, and it was subtly addicting even then. It had started when Sakura had found him meditating in the midst of foliage while they waited for their habitually late sensei. He remembers being taken by bewilderment by her elation, the white glimmer in her emerald eyes, when he instructed: _You just sit down, shut up, and breathe._

She had urged Naruto to join them too, despite Sasuke's protests. Naruto was compliant because it was _Sakura_ asking but he was often too hyper to bother for long, lasting all but a few minutes. _Lets join hands!_ Sakura had chirped. _Maybe we can counteract your nerves._ But this just made Sasuke anxious. Naruto's chakra was enormous and scalded him and _Wow, you're right, Sakura-chan, I feel better already! Your hand is so warm, and soft, and your—_ He had hissed, _Dobe, shut the hell up! It's a **meditation.**_ Neither him nor Sakura could combat the eccentric waves of their teammate. Sasuke was always grateful when Naruto gave up, because then he could focus on just him and Sakura.

And Naruto was right. Her hands were warm and soft. And her chakra was _vibrant_. It flowed into him seamlessly, with a perfect cadence that synchronized with the contours of his own. It had a luminosity to it, like Naruto's, but it wasn't overbearing like the jinchuuriki's. Sasuke had found it inexplicably soothing. And each time they were deep inside their catatonic states, her thumbs would ever so gently trace over his palms.

He hadn't thought it was intentional, so he selfishly allowed it. But as he got to know her better, he realized she was much more devious than she let on, actively using her innocuous appearance to her advantage. He never said anything about the gentle caresses she gave him but it made him wonder.

But now he's not sure if he'll ever get an answer because a week has gone by and he can't find a trace of her anywhere. He's certain she's either on a lengthy mission away from the village or she's walking around with her chakra masked.

He knows it's not like looking for Naruto, who's chakra is a constant beacon of light. But she shouldn't be this hard to find either, especially with the Rinnegan. _Damn that perfect chakra control._ She's made it difficult on purpose. She's not just avoiding him, she's trying to erase herself from him completely.

She can't do this. She shouldn't be _allowed_ to. She came and cradled his battered and broken head in her healing palms. She _poured_ into the hollow of his chest, flooded his every pore, his battle driven heart. She couldn't tell him—in all her infinite beauty, an ethereal pixie with those green, green eyes and that beautiful, _beautiful_ pale pink hair—that _she_ loves _him_.

And then just **take** **it back**.

Sasuke wanted to cry out, to cut open every piece of him she had poured her faith into. He wanted to drown the world in the heat of his black flames with bleeding eyes and terrorizing screams. It wasn't fair, it wasn't _right_. Sakura couldn't leave him like the others. She promised herself to him too young, too full of conviction. _I love you._ She had said. _I would do anything for you. Please, just stay with me..._ And he hated the naked sincerity in her voice, how it trembled in open vulnerability back then. Now, he hates it even more.

 _Don't leave!_ She had cried.

(But he did.)

His fist smashes into the wall of a nearby shop, and he crumbles onto the floor. Her absence has him feeling misplaced in this forlorn village of heros and casualties. It was like she had scooped out his bone, muscle, and promise and left him with nothing but the vast empty. Another family member lost, another love fallen to his everlasting grief. Was he meant to spend his life missing her, loving her, resenting her, the way he has with Itachi?

And he is as dumbfounded by this thought as much as he is tormented. There was a modest amount of certainties Sasuke held in his lifetime, but Sakura loving him was one of them. Now Sasuke doesn't know what to believe. He needs her oh so bad and he doesn't know why she's not there. He doesn't know why she isn't holding him. Because he just saw his dead niisan again and his skin is peeling off beneath his fingers and he _needs_ her.

Sasuke only ever wanted his family back. He wanted his love again. And Naruto, yes, Naruto is family, his brother. He would give his life for Naruto a thousand times over and forever. But _Sakura_. Sakura was his. Even before herself, she was _his_. And his alone. Her avoidance has heightened his madness and has him cycling into bouts where he's pathetically desperate for control.

And he knows he's acting crazy as he does it, he knows he needs to stop—just forget the past and let it be. _It's too much. You need to let it go, Sasuke._ Kakashi had said—but he _can't._ Can't sleep, can't eat, can hardly breathe, his mind is rotating in infinite loops of SakuraSakuraSakura. He misses her too much.

 _Miss._ Like he was reaching through the swell of the prenatal aether, but then she had been forced out before their fingers could meet. And he just needed to _feel_ her, **dammit,** _We should have stayed dead._

Desperate, but never sloppy, Sasuke finds himself following Naruto with his chakra fervently masked. He follows him everywhere—to Ichiraku, to the training grounds, to Hinata, to see Sai, back to Ichiraku, to Kakashi, to the market… For several days, he follows him and follows him, promising he'll stop in the next hour, the next night, the next day. But he never does.

He tracks him until finally, _finally_ Naruto is presented with a slug summon one night at Ichiraku's. The jinchuuriki takes ramen to go and leads Sasuke to an old apartment building between Konoha's shinobi hospital and the civilian district her parents lived in.

She moved out, Sasuke realizes. And he doesn't know why he is so stunned. Who wouldn't want privacy from their parents at age 24? _Privacy for **what?**_ — _Shutupshutup._ He has no right.

He sees her chakra through the walls, a soft green, quietly condensed to her being and barely 's scrambling around, looking for a branch that is level with her apartment floor. He's thankful for the obscure of night because he's feeling maladroit, palm slick with suspense.

He finds a branch by a window, and she's already with Sai and Ino before Naruto meets them in her walls are an ugly mustard color though beautifully decorated with art and knick knacks, and he's in awe because it's _hers_. But he doesn't soak in any of it the way he wants to because once his eyes find a small figure on the bed, they do not leave.

His throat is tight and his heart is violently palpitating because she is _so_ damn beautiful. Her hair is longer than he remembers, just reaching the small of her back. She looks thin, bones jutting instead of muscle, and her eyes are worn with fatigue, but her smile is radiant and tender.

They chatter about nonsense, and they're notably playful. A sanguine calm overtakes him as he watches through foliage that is only just beginning to wither. He notes everything, the rigidness in her shoulders when Naruto says something stupid, the shine in her eyes when Ino makes a joke, the intention in her gaze when Sai speaks.

But then Ino is peeking through the open window with paraphernalia in her hand. Her eyes are perplexed, studying him close. _Fuck!_ He turns away, hiding from sight before he hears her attention called away. He doesn't stick around to find out if she's revealed his presence or not. Heart in his throat and head in the clouds, he absconds with the image of pastel pink behind his eyes.

He silently pledges not to come back after that incident, because that's not a thing good teammates do. But two days later, he's right outside her apartment window again.

And again.

And again.

He's stalking her, he realizes. It's completely stupid of him. Sakura is perspicacious and intuitive, and he has to be painstakingly meticulous if he doesn't want to be caught. But he needs this and he promises he won't do anything, he wouldn't ever hurt her again, _it's Sakura for fuck's sake._ So it's okay. It's okay if he just _looks._

It becomes a nightly ritual. Waiting around her streets beneath slivers of moonlight. Rinnegan attentive until he catches that viridescent hue on her walk home. He sidles closer to her building, patient until her chakra is flaring, alive and free—a signal she's asleep. Then he casts an area genjutsu, finds a comfortable position on a tree, and watches.

She's never doing anything. Just sleeping, soft breaths moving with her naked shoulders. And it _soothes_ him. It makes him feel close. Close to what, he's not sure, but he knows it's something good.

Sometimes she comes awfully late and she doesn't get many hours before she goes back to the hospital again. Many times she'll be having a nightmare and Sasuke doesn't find it easy to suppress the searing impulse to break in through the window and hold her, tell her it's okay. Because he knows the nightmares. He has them too.

He relives that fateful day of the Uchiha massacre, sees visions of Madara burning him alive, of Orochimaru taking his body, of becoming Kabuto's experiment—of killing Kakashi, killing Naruto, killing _Sakura_. He has so many vivid dreams about Itachi, his life, his death, his genjutsus, that Sasuke is genuinely surprised he hasn't snapped and put himself out of his misery (although, not for lack of trying.) But no matter the nightmare, Sasuke's left puking at late hours and cutting himself open. Sometimes he pokes himself through with a single claw of a Susanoo finger—and the _burning_ —the burning of that chakra clad arm engulfs **everything**.

Sakura doesn't do that though.

She cries and she hugs her knees, rocks back and forth. He can hear her whispering, "It's okay, Sakura, it's okay," before she recites a list of terms he only knows must be medical. Sometimes she carves into her headboard with a kunai too, and it ranges from small nicks in the wood to violent stabs. It doesn't get easier to watch.

Every now and then she rolls a joint afterwards too and he's surprised because he wouldn't have pegged Sakura to be the type to smoke. But he also found these vices to be more common than most nin let on.

Suigetsu had once slaughtered all the inhabitants of a shinobi inn while the rest of Taka was gone. He'd found him amidst a bad trip, mumbling, _All of us are ghosts, **all** of us._ Sasuke had snuck into his bags to confiscate every remotely suspicious substance after that.

Karin only preferred alcohol as her main vice, but everyone in Taka partook in smoking before, besides him (it wasn't worth the risk.) He knew Jugo enjoyed it more than he let on, and Suigetsu laughed at everything when he was high. Sasuke hated when Karin got stoned because she often got riled up and tried to coax him with a sultry _Sasuke-kun, I'm cold. Won't you hold me?_ He never cared to touch her, but he wonders about Sakura then.

Would she be horrified like he once was, if he admitted aloud that he fantasizes about brushing his lips against her neck, about burying himself inside of her?

Probably.

Ino visits Sakura every now and then, and Sasuke is confounded spectating their intimacy. His stomach burns seeing Sakura curling up against her like that. Sometimes Sakura will even wake up and kiss Ino's cheek or head, sigh so sweetly his throat feels like it's been stuffed with cotton. They're unfathomably close and it makes him sick in a way he never thought he could be.

It's even worse when one night it happens with Naruto. Much worse. They hold each other, and Sasuke knows it's platonic because Naruto never does anything that _he knows_ he would do if he were against her like that. But it still makes him want to rip the jinchuuriki's heart out from the cage. It should be _him_ against Sakura, breathing her in, legs tangled, lips pressing in steady affection, whispering, _It's okay, the worst is over._

He sees Naruto the very next day and he's senselessly volatile. Naruto asks what's wrong but Sasuke shrugs him off, "Just a bad day," followed by a "Let's spar."

And then, some nights, Sakura wakes up and touches herself.

The first time it happens, Sasuke is so alarmed and flustered with embarrassment that he immediately bolts away. The second time, he doesn't quite make it that far—eyes mapping the slender of her neck, the protrusion of a clavicle peeking beneath lilac comforters. His body has been ensnared by her, pulse quick, pants cramped and tight. And the fourth time Sasuke undoes the fastening of his lower garments and touches himself with her.

He finds she likes to take her time. Needs it, even. Sasuke usually liked to just get it over with when he was alone and needing, like it was a horrible inconvenience to make love to his body. But when he's with Sakura, he follows her pace and _enjoys_ it. It's slow, tantalizing, and it heightens his every nerve watching her hazy expressions.

Sometimes he even gets to hear the small sounds she makes when a window is left open. And he has to be careful these nights, because he gets so caught up in her that he becomes prone to letting the mask of his chakra leak. Fortunately, the few times it happens, she is too wrapped up in bliss to notice.

But sometimes her whines still and the whimpers start to sound pained, like she's been wounded. And then she starts to cry, curling into herself and fingers pulling at her head. Sasuke can hardly feel himself softening in his hand because _Why?_ Why is she hurting amidst a moment as lovely as her ecstasy?

Witnessing her grief becomes harder to sit with. He can't sleep again because he **knows** she's going to do something. She's too restless at night, too much like _him_. He starts to send summons to play guardian for him. _So I know she's okay,_ Sasuke tells himself, although his methods are too intrusive to persuade his crumbling ethics, so he limits his antics to twice a week.

And on those days, he feels the slightest ease of the violent paranoia. On those days, she can't hurt herself. On those days, a morally conflicted nin with a suicide mission can't snatch everything— _her_ —away from him too.

On the other days, the insomnia gets worse because he just can't stand sleeping alone anymore. Sasuke is sick of only ever sleeping with ghosts and he needs her bad. He wants her to wake him up from the nightmares, like she used to when they were kids. And every day when she's not curled up beside him in his bed is a day spent in panic, certain that _this is The Day._ So eventually, he stops trying to sleep altogether.

He takes missions and fills his time with tedious training. Sometimes he blacks out in the middle of the training ground, and sometimes he falls asleep on missions. But his teammates are too scared to rat him out. It's only Naruto who speaks up about his decay. _Oi! Don't act all high and mighty, I could have killed you, bastard!_ His head is a fogged miasma and Sasuke doesn't complain because maybe he's tired and a little slow, but at least he isn't reliving the massacre in another bad dream.

The unrest makes seeing Sakura that much more rewarding. And when he watches her like this, with her expression soft and her hair draped over her pillow, he's tempted to edge closer. Just a peek by the window to see her features more clearly, to feel the vibrance of her chakra against his.

But he knows it's too dangerous a thought, one that will inevitably end with him wanting more. So, for once, he tries not to be selfish.


	13. Trivial Pursuits

Between missions, putting off sleep, and stalking Sakura, Sasuke chases the chill from his bones with the company of Naruto's warmth. It forces him to eat ramen more often than he has ever cared to, but there's a wistful nostalgia that comes with eating a bowl of slimy noodles he doesn't particularly want with his best friend.

Occasionally Hinata comes along too, although she never stays very long because of the pungent smells by Ichiraku, and the bustle of the marketplace in general. Who Sasuke sees more often is Sai, who he vaguely remembers meeting prior to his return.

Naruto insists that he get better acquainted with the Root nin as the new addition of Team 7. Sasuke isn't threatened by the fact that Sai was chosen as his replacement, but he's not thrilled to be in the nin's presence either. Sai is strange. And mildly irritating. But so was everyone else in the original Konoha 11 so Sasuke doesn't complain. Especially after finding out Sai's nickname for Naruto.

"Dickless," Sai calls. Sasuke lips turn in the barest hint of a smirk. He'll never get tired of hearing it.

"Just give me a second, Sai, I'm trying to beat this bastard in an eating contest." Naruto says, slurping ramen between his words, spit and broth and noodle squelching in his open mouth.

"No one is having an eating contest with you, you idiot," Sasuke says. His stomach groans and he's not sure if he wants to eat more or puke up what he's already swallowed.

"Oh yeah? Then why are you on your third bowl just like me, huh!?" Naruto accuses, grin nimble and mischievous.

"Because I haven't eaten all day," Sasuke says. "How else would I get myself to stomach this trash as often as you make me?" He doesn't give much attention to the insulted look of the owner—he hands this business too much of his money for them to throw him out now.

"You take that back, teme! No one shit talks Ichiraku in front of me!" Naruto growls, jabbing his chopsticks into Sasuke's chest and staining his clothes with hot broth. Sasuke isn't overcome with the red-hot urge to snap his arm off like he would when they were kids. But there's a firm twitch of his mouth as he tries to remember the part of him that missed these juvenile antics.

"Dickless," Sai repeats, but Naruto is still trying to pin Sasuke with a peevish look and a hard frown that Sasuke is studiously ignoring. "I am concerned about Ugly."

Naruto shifts his head towards Sai. "Wait, wha? What happened?"

"Beautiful said she fell asleep during her shift again yesterday," Sai says.

The hospital? He couldn't be talking about…? "Who's Beautiful?" Sasuke asks, already anticipating the answer.

"Ino," Naruto supplies. This is not the answer he thought. "Her and Sai are dating."

"Don't tell me ugly is..."

"Sakura-chan," Naruto confirms.

There's the downward twitch of Sasuke's lips in nothing short of pure offense. If he didn't care for Sai before, he loathes him now.

Naruto seems immune to the insult though, and Sasuke supposes that is only natural considering his own apparent alias.

"It's probably just Sakura overworking herself as usual," Naruto says, "You know how she gets."

Sai might know, but Sasuke doesn't and he wants to. But he's trying to relearn his sense of discretion concerning her, so he keeps quiet.

"It's not just that," Sai says. "Beautiful says she hasn't been eating."

Naruto twirls the noodles in his bowl around with chopsticks then, his tone unnaturally solemn. "Yeah, she hasn't been eating much in general since that whole thing with her parents. That's not news."

 _Her parents?_

Sasuke doesn't like this conversation. Every time Sakura is brought up it's never paired with good news. And that doesn't make any sense because Sakura is a girl named after flowers—after life. He hates this, but he needs to know. He needs to know why she keeps crying in her sleep.

"What happened to her parents?" Sasuke asks. He remembers her complaining as a genin about her okaasan's bitterness and her otousan's complacency. She swore she was going to leave them one day. _And then they'll leave each other too and everyone will be alone._ "Did they divorce?" Sasuke asks uncertainly. Even amongst the most miserable civilian couples, spouses rarely separate. It brought too much shame.

"No," Naruto says. "They're dead." Sasuke blanches.

 ** _What?_**

"They're civilians," Sasuke says, and tries to swallow the lump in his throat. Sakura shouldn't know what it's like to lose family. He doesn't want her to.

Naruto shrugs, as if it doesn't make a difference. "It happened a couple years ago." Naruto says, chewing on noodles thoughtfully. "It was this whole thing. Her dad was killed by some nin that went bonkers. Wrong-place-wrong-time kind of thing. Then her mom committed suicide, apparently on his birthday."

Sasuke stares forward, eyes gliding over the red, glossed counter and white, round bowls. Sakura lost her parents. Her _civilian_ parents. What was the war for, shinobi's sacrifices for, when the civilians died over nothing anyway?

"Beautiful says it's a good thing her okaasan passed," Sai says.

Naruto nearly chokes on his noodles, a guttural sound hacking through before he starts coughing. " _Ino_ said that?" Naruto asks, appalled.

"Ino didn't like her very much," Sai says. "Would you like my water?"

Somehow, Sasuke is less surprised by this news and he's not sure why. He thinks of the glimpses he's had of her parents—her too-friendly otousan and her too-hostile okaasan. "She didn't like me," Sasuke recalls. He can still see Mebuki's sneer, and the pout of her lip that looked a little like Sakura's. Except it didn't. "When we met her as genin that one time, I remember—"

Naruto smacks Sai's cup back down onto the table, and the hollow echo says it is empty. "Oh my gods!" Naruto snickers. "She looked at you like you were a friggin' tailed beast. Probably the only person that didn't kiss your ass—it was so great!" It wasn't.

He can't believe they're dead. "Why didn't Ino like her?" Sasuke asks and pushes his bowl of noodles to the side. He has no plans of returning to it.

"She doesn't say," Sai says, and it's one of the first times Sasuke detects a deeper emotion from the Root nin—he almost sounds resentful. "No secrets between us except for other people's," he quotes, a different kind of colorless.

"Man," Naruto groans, pout obnoxious. "I can't believe Sakura-chan told Ino and _not me!_ " Sasuke rolls his eyes.

"Ugly didn't tell her," Sai corrects. "She found out from the Shintenshin."

"Oh," Naruto says.

"Sounds invasive," Sasuke says. He's not one to talk—the Sharingan takes a blender to people's psyche most times. Mangekyō shatters them to grain. Still, the Yamanaka clan's technique being this intrusive is news to him.

"The technique is commonly used for interrogations," Sai explains.

"Well, whatever," Naruto dismisses. "The point is," Naruto turns to Sasuke, stuffing his face as if they are discussing the weather and not a lifelong teammates' dead parents. "It's kind of a sore spot. So don't mention it when you see her."

Sasuke still can't quite tell if Naruto just says this to appease his underlying desperation or if the idiot actually believes it'll happen. But knowing the visionary nature of his best friend, he's probably delusional enough for it to be the latter.

The optimism pricks—just another false promise testing Sasuke's sanity.

"Usuratonkachi," Sasuke mutters. " _Obviously._ Do you think I'm stupid?"

Naruto's smile widens, taunting. "I don't know, bastard, sometimes I wonder if it's really Sai who should be reading those social etiquette books."

"You're one to talk, you idiot," Sasuke says. He hates that he's smiling. Sasuke is gripped by this knowledge—wanting to know more, wanting to know less. _What happened?_ How much was left unsaid between Sakura and her phantoms too? Naruto is _smiling._

Sasuke wants to skin that smirk clean off his whiskered face. "Why the hell didn't you tell me all this earlier? You say I'm going to see her _next time_ and you didn't even think to tell me that her parents are **dead?** "

Naruto struggles to gulp down a fresh clump of noodles, face heated pink in embarrassment. "Well—I don't know! It's her business!" he says, expression lying somewhere between indignation and shame. "It's not like you wanted people broadcasting your life! Even when Tsunade—"

" _That's_ your excuse?" Sasuke asks, body burning everywhere. "Dobe, I'm her _teammate_. She's anorexic, she's having nightmares, and—"

"She has nightmares?" Sai asks.

Sasuke grounds his teeth together so hard they could crumble in his mouth. "I'm done with this," He says, tearing a wad of money from his pocket and smacking it onto the counter. He hopes it's enough because he can't be bothered to count right now.

"Wait! Teme!" Naruto snatches his wrist, and Sasuke just barely backpedals enough to pause and hear him out. _Be better._ He had promised himself.

"I'm sorry, okay?" Naruto says. "I-I know you're worried and thinking about her. But—I didn't do any of it on purpose—she just—she has these _feelings_ about seeing you and I didn't think—"

Violently, Sasuke tears his wrist away and shunshins out of the market, drowning Naruto's cry with the bleak cold of the sky and greys of his heart.

Fucking ramen loving idiot—as if he doesn't already know that. As if he doesn't _know._

Naruto didn't have to rub it in like that.

* * *

 _The Sharingan is a blessing._ Okaasan once told him, her hands both soft and rough against the apple of his cheek. _It's the eyes of the mind. You see into people's worlds—every thought, feeling._ Her smile had been bright, he remembered. And her irises warm. _You'll never forget how to love with eyes like ours._

If the Sharingan is a blessing, the Rinnegan is nothing short of divinity.

There, in rivers of blue, Sasuke sees every reflection of Naruto. Each speck of cerulean iris imprinted with an image that the boy once was, is now, and will be. Every hue of purple, red, brown, on his rapidly paling skin is an echo of the serene places that his soul brother once became. Naruto is everything, everywhere. There is nothing more real than him. _Asura._

The red plasma coating Sasuke's fingers is rich and slick, and even as he pulls out the charred heart of his otouto, he knows it doesn't matter. It beats in his palm, still alive. _Always alive._ He can feel Hashirama already—somewhere distant in a fresh womb, waiting to be reborn. _New._ Always new. Cerulean soul belonging to the cycle. _Samsāra_ . Just like him.

It's something they've known intuitively, this deep oracle nestled in the hearth of their passions. And he has let it guide him, flames dancing, dancing, dancing—everything to ash.

Now they're here and Sasuke is looking on with his Sharingan. He wants to see his presence inside the kaleidoscope of Naruto's mind, the traces of his own existence inside his brother's head. Every thought, every feeling, like okaasan had said. Because truth be told, Sasuke has been aching to feel real too. He could never really quite find himself, this time around.

His Mangekyō is a powerful thing, shifts Naruto's thoughts open like the parting of their mother's thighs for their father's seed.

But nothing is there.

 _Not here?_ He looks into those bright, blue eyes again, and he sees it. The grim vacancy. Like his parents. Like Itachi.

 _No. Oh no._ Sasuke's hunched shoulders spasm until he falls backwards. Then he's crawling away, and the dirt smears red and wet against his palms. He looks away, eyes trained on the smouldering black bark of ashen trees. It's moving in and out of focus, expanding and contracting in blurs until there's nothing. Sasuke can't see—he's blind again. And now there's nothing but Naruto's hollow cerulean in his mind's eye.

It's wrong, it's so wrong. Naruto isn't ever supposed to look that empty. _No no no **fuck** no._

He's gone. _He's gone._ Sasuke did it again and Naruto is gone. Sasuke hears himself screaming like a distant echo from a life away. It's not right. He's supposed to be _here_. He's supposed to be—

Sasuke swivels his head to the side and then he feels him again, sees him, his chakra roaring to life. _The Kyuubi._ Red-hot and scorching and **alive.**

His legs shuffle upright, and then he's sprinting. Sasuke's eyes are coasting through the images of a village he once helped make, following the guidance of that blistering pulse of crimson chakra.

He has to find him. This is all he has left. His Rinnegan is burning through his body, _Closer,_ and then he's slamming through a narrow window, crying, "Naruto!"

And Naruto is _there_ , huffing and sweaty, bare over a shrieking Hinata in their master bed. "What the fuck!?" Naruto cries. "Teme?"

"You're," Sasuke legs are jelly, puddling onto the wooden floor. He's _alive._ The womb carried him through, brought him back.

Hinata is squabbling about, pulling the sheets close. "S-Sasuke-san?" She asks, voice high pitched and jarred out of rhythm. Naruto is moving to the edge of the bed.

"What the hell happened?" Naruto rasps.

Sasuke is stalking forward, Rinnegan and Mangekyō spinning round and round with his mind. Naruto is alive. Sasuke's pale fingers reach out, like red rimmed bones. _Closer._ "You left. You left again." He touches Naruto's face and it burns, hot and moist and so much like life. The blood on his fingers smear when he pulls away and a choked noise comes out when Sasuke sees the stain he leaves.

Naruto places his hand on his shoulder, and it's so hot, it scalds him. Sasuke winces, pulling away, heart thrumming frantic in his head. "Sasuke, I think you just had a nightmare."

 _"No,"_ he whines, his voice both deep and shrill and completely beyond his own recognition. "That's not it." That couldn't be it. He doesn't sleep anymore. There's bursts of pain behind his right eye. "I _saw_ you."

"I'll get you both water," Hinata offers breathy somewhere in the background. She's leaving, wrapped in the silken white sheets.

"You look like hell. I think you need to get some rest." Naruto's eyes are sad again. _Pity._

"No!" Sasuke roars, crumbling into himself. All he can see is the skeletons on him. They use their own bones to pierce him. "I can't! You'll—you'll die."

That's all his dreams ever are.

Killing Itachi, killing Sakura, killing Naruto, killing Kakashi, killing Mebuki, killing Itachi, killing Karin, killing Orochimaru killing Naruto killing Hinata killing Fugaku killing Sakura killing Itachi killing Danzo.

killing Itachi.

killing Itachi

killingItachikillingItachikillingItachi—

forehead pokes with **red** fingers, _Sharingan_ eyes falling out, hitting the floor— _Plop!_ Knees jerking he's falling no eyes noeyes. _He'sblindhe'sbblind **I'mblind.**_

Sasuke rocks back and forth on the floor. The bed frame move closer, then further, and closer again. He can taste his blood, cheeks damp, body tender. Itachi's eyes were open when Sasuke stared down at his corpse. Now they're gone because he stole them. And Sasuke did horrible things to Karin when he was an avenger. He did horrible, horrible things and he can't take it back. Naruto's voice is harmonious light, slipping through the cracks of the white noise.

 _Be okay...Right here._

 _Sasuke? Say...hear me?_

 _Think we...the hospital…_

 _Fuck no. They'll…_

 _But Naruto-kun, I...needs help._

 _I can...for him._

 _Sasuke...there?_

 _Sasuke?_

 _Sasuke?_

 _Sasuke-kun..._

He moans, wet, "Sakura?"

* * *

Sasuke comes to feeling dizzy and sluggish. There's warm fingers threading through his hair and a cool chakra creeping in his abdomen. _Is Sakura okay?_

He looks up, his eyes meeting Naruto's paled face, eyes red and swollen. "Hey bastard," he says, wilted but still heartfelt.

"Hey idiot," Sasuke says, somehow sounding more tired than Naruto. His eyes pass Hinata, her small, white hand pressed against his naked skin. It's a mixed feeling of pain and a subtle relieving coolness.

His body aches all around, but the worst by far is the surging agony in his left thigh. He doesn't bother to examine it, just grits his teeth and lets consciousness stream between the pauses of blinding pain.

Bars of light pass from the blinds to illuminate Hinata's tired visage and he wonders how long she has been at this. He wishes he can forget last night. The pain helps take his mind from it.

"You...You shouldn't," he begins, and Hinata looks at him with wide pearls, curious. "You're pregnant. You should rest."

"Oh," Hinata whispers to herself, then swallows her hesitation. "I didn't—I slept last night," she says.

He feels Naruto's hand pull away and Sasuke finds a strange dissatisfaction in the retraction of his warmth. "I made Hinata sleep, she didn't look too good," Naruto explains, his voice a dull background noise alongside the murky echo of Sasuke's head. "She just made sure you wouldn't bleed out."

There's a light knock on the door, and Hinata mumbles something before getting up.

"Don't worry, bastard, we'll fix you up." Naruto promises. A cool, wet towel wipes at his hot temple, then his cheeks, pushing away his curtain of slick, dark hair.

"Sai said you sent a summon," a feminine voice rings through his ears from the doorway.

Sasuke's hand shoots up, pulls Naruto down roughly by his collar until their foreheads nearly smack. He whispers with a frantic edge in his tone. "I don't want anyone—"

" _Relax,_ teme." Naruto huffs, pulls Sasuke's white hand away with a lazy but gentle motion. "I know. It's me, Sasuke. I wouldn't do that to you."

Then Sasuke's turning his head, Rinnegan swirling, despite all the aches around his sore, sore eyes. He sees the chakra signature first, and he recognizes it. _Yamanaka._ Sasuke turns his head to the side in a strained resignation. He realizes he trusts her too, in a strange way. She's one of Sakura's closest friends. And Sakura has sound judgement, minus the terrible mishap of falling for him as a young girl.

Sasuke wishes she was here now. He could have sworn she was, at one point. But he's also prone to hallucinating.

"I was able to treat most of them, but the one on his thigh..." Hinata says.

Ino whistles, and the sound is too high and too sharp for him right now. "Wow, that is _deep._ What happened?"

"Just some training," Naruto lies.

Sasuke can tell Ino doesn't buy it by the arch of her brow, but she doesn't investigate it either. "Well, why isn't he in the hospital then? My shift is about to start, I can—"

He makes a sound of protest so raw that it hurts his throat as much as his ears. **"No."**

Ino is quiet for a stilted moment. "Ah, I see," she says. Then she's leaning down, and he finally begins to feel relief course through him. "You're a trooper, Sasuke. This hit a few major nerves. I don't know how you went this long without a professional dose of pain killers."

"Thank you, Ino," Naruto is the first to say. "This really means a lot to me."

"Don't worry about it, Naruto," Ino says, her voice jubilant and welcoming and Sasuke wonders if he's alone in this. He could never emulate that level of enthusiasm. "You're Sakura and Sai's lifeline, you're practically family at this point."

"If there's anything we can do to make this up to you, please let us know," Hinata says, pushing a long strand of her dark hair behind her ear. She's pale in the face, more so than usual. She looks tired too.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll _definitely_ be cashing out on that," Ino promises with a wink. "So, Sasuke," she begins, peeling some of his torn clothes, and bloody bandages away. Sasuke sucks in his teeth, cold air hitting wounds he doesn't really remember getting. "Where are you staying? Did Hokage-sama get you a place?"

"He offered," Sasuke says.

"You said no?" Ino asks. "Why?"

"The houses here are too big," he says. She gives him a look then, one that suggests he spoke in a foreign tongue.

"Don't worry about the bastard," Naruto interjects. "He's going to be staying with us."

Sasuke glances over at Naruto, then Hinata, trying to measure her level of uncomfortability with this statement. She's calm though, her small hands sitting comfortably on her stomach, white eyes trained on Ino's movements. He's not sure if they had discussed it earlier or if she just assumed he was too unstable to be left alone. Either way, he feels awfully sorry for her.

Ino starts to babble about nothing in particular. Sasuke can feel her chakra weaving through him then, and it feels exponentially less invasive than Kabuto's, so he takes that as a victory. Naruto's fingers go back to combing through his hair gently.

"You did a really good job, Hinata," Ino says. "How long have you been training in medical ninjutsu again?"

"A little over two years," Hinata says, wearing a smile that is both demure and proud. "We stopped since the pregnancy, but Sakura-san says I'm a fast learner."

Sasuke can't tell if it's Naruto who flinches, or him. His eyes closing of their own accord, wishing it was Sakura's chakra pulsing through him instead. But then remembers the shame of needing her to heal him that very first time. Sasuke thinks he may be irreversibly exhausted.

"She's right," Ino says. "It took me at least three before I could heal without leaving any scarring like that."

"The Byakugan helps."

"Aaand….we're done." Ino finally pulls her hands away, and her gaze catches his. "Your body isn't in good condition, Sasuke. You need to take better care of yourself," Ino says. He's too tired to respond properly, just offers a grunt.

He sits up and thinks of how the ease on his muscles is alien to him. She hands him two white capsules. "Blood replenishing pills," she explains. "You honestly could use a blood transfusion, but you'll be fine with the pills if you take it easy," Ino says. "Take two twice a day for the next 4 days. If you feel any pain in your leg or abdomen, stop taking them and contact me immediately. Also, if you happen to get deployed, **no** soldier pills, not for at least a week, got it?"

Sasuke nods. "Thanks," he murmurs.

Ino gives him a warm, affectionate smile then, and it's one he realizes that he recognizes. He wonders if Sakura learned it from her or if it was the other way around. "It's really good to see you here again, Sasuke. Sorry it's under circumstances like this, but maybe I'll see you around?"

Ino stands and he's mildly impressed she knows him well enough not to expect a response. She starts pulling out a bottle of the medication—the one she prescribed, he presumes. "You two keep an eye on him," she orders. "Make sure he doesn't go out and do anything stupid. I know that look."

He isn't entirely sure what she's talking about, but he figures it doesn't matter. There's a more pressing matter on his mind.

"Ino," he says. "Is Sakura okay?" He knows it's bold and maybe reckless to ask something like this in the open, but he's certain Ino will be more honest than Naruto has been.

There's a slight coiling of her shoulders, mouth flinching. "Just focus on yourself," she deflects, and he finds he doesn't have the energy to be offended by it. "I'll take care of her."

Sasuke doesn't quite trust that though. His summon didn't come back today and he's worried. They always come back. What if something happened? What if she's hurt?

He wants to ask Ino more questions, hear about the little things going on in Sakura's life and everything that happened since he's been away. Hear about Hinata's healing sessions, and how long Ino thinks it'll take before Sakura stops crying at night or when she'll reach for his hand again like in their genin days.

But then Ino's gone.

* * *

The next time Sasuke meets eyes with his madness, it's in Naruto's living room.

It starts with the loud protest of a slowly clogging drain. He had just washed his right hand—a previously impossible task but now a seamless one with a little maneuvering. And now he can still hear the gargle from the living room couch.

The sound is coarse on his ears, but there's nothing to do but wait for Sakura's shift to end, so he closes his eyes and tries to relax his restless body. And then he hears it.

 _Otouto._

His eyes snap open, red alarms ringing in his head. Sasuke's Sharingan whirls to life to meet Itachi's—but his eyes are missing again because Sasuke stole them.

Itachi's sockets are gaping holes, leaking gore. He's keeled over on the rug, white and shaking, caught in the fit of a guttural cough. Sasuke's mind is pinwheeling with his eyes, scrambling to the floor, watching his niisan try to quiet the cough with his hand. "S-sasuke, I," he wheezes. "I think I'm—"

"Don't speak," Sasuke orders, fingers twitching. "Don't speak, I'll save you. I'll save you, niisan." Sasuke cries out for help, trying to crawl closer, but he's shaking so bad. "Hinata!"

"Teme?" Naruto is there in an instant. "Teme, are you okay?"

His heart is rapid firing in his chest, and Itachi is coughing up a lung, blood leaking through his white fingers. "I'm fine, help Itachi!"

"Itachi?" Naruto asks, brows contorted.

Hinata is shuffling over, face bolted in sharp focus. "He's hyperventilating bad."

"I _know,"_ Sasuke half growls, pleading. "Just help him already!"

Itachi's head is lolling against his bony shoulder, hair dampened and clinging to his perspiring forehead. His voice comes out so scared between his short breaths, _"Sasuke."_

Hinata is kneeling over by Sasuke then. "J-just try to take shorter breaths with me, Sasuke-san, it's goin—"

"Not _me_!" Sasuke hisses, and he snatches her by the back of her neck, violently thrusting her towards his moribund niisan. **"Him!"**

"Sasuke!" Naruto cries out, part shock, part reprimand. "Sasuke, stop!" Sasuke can barely feel Naruto gripping his lone arm. His eyes never part from Itachi's body, writhing on the floor. "No one is there!"

"Are you stupid?!" Sasuke cries. He's desperately trying to yank his arm away and wishing to the gods he knew medical ninjutsu because Hinata is just _sitting there_ , petrified. "Just help him, Naruto!"

"Sasuke, look at me," Naruto says.

"I'm sorry," Itachi's grey lips croak.

"Please!" Sasuke's can't feel anything but the burning in his eyes and chest, can't hear anything but the ringing in his ears and the whimpers of the last worthy Uchiha. The adrenaline is rushing, it **never** stops. " _Please,_ he's going to die!"

"Look at me!" Naruto roars with a monstrous echo, yanking Sasuke close by the collar of his shirt.

And then Sasuke can see the Kyuubi, nefarious, and livid—all red and black. Just like the Sharingan. Just like the Tsukiyomi. Just like Itachi lying dead among the debris.

"No one is there, Sasuke," Naruto says, and he can feel the heat of his breath against his face.

"Dobe, he's right…!" He turns his head, but now all he sees is Hinata—staring at him as one would look at their own funeral. "...there."

"Sasuke, Itachi is dead." Naruto voice is grim, final.

"No, he's…" Sasuke begins, suddenly aware of the death grip of his throat, the shortness of his own breath.

The grief slams into him, then the shame. He's humiliated, ravenous, immortally heartbroken. "Right. He's dead." Sasuke remembers the blankness in Itachi's eyes. They still somehow retained their humility in death, just like his okaasan. "Because I killed him."

He can feel the weak stitching of his mind unravel, and his fingers frantically shake trying to find something to hold onto. Sasuke grabs his spiky locks, and all he can hear is Itachi's voice, wishing _next time_ would come again. But it's not going to come because Itachi is dead and Sasuke killed him.

He's spiraling, _laughing,_ choked and hoarse. His vision blurs in hot tears. "I killed him." Then Sasuke's sobbing. He's gone. Everything is gone.

Naruto reaches for him and it hurts, but Sasuke is too ashamed to pull away. He just sits there and cries into Naruto's shoulder.

* * *

Later that night Hinata has just finished throwing up in the toilet and Ino is over again. Naruto and Ino go to talk in the hallway after Hinata insists she's fine, and just needs some privacy to clean up.

"Okay," Ino says, defeat oscillating between the pause of her words. "I really wish I could get around it, but you're right."

"Thanks Ino," Naruto says, sounding no better. "I know this is a lot of trouble."

"Just promise you'll work on getting him some real help soon," Ino says. "Meds aren't magical cures and they can really mess with chakra channels. And…I don't want him to be another doped up shinobi."

"I know," Naruto says. "Neither do I."

There's a thick silence, and then, "You look really tired, Naruto," Ino says.

"I'll be okay." Naruto says after several beats. But there's a hitch of his breath that seems to say otherwise.

"Yeah. We'll make it through this," Ino says. "All of us." Then her footsteps echo louder, and he realizes she's coming closer.

He tries to feign sleep when Ino comes by the couch. "Really, Sasuke? C'mon, I'm a sensor. Don't insult me."

Sasuke opens his eyes, wearing a lopsided frown. "What do you want?" He asks, too tired to put any real heat behind the words.

She leans down, somewhat distant but still much too close for his comfort. "Sasuke, you mean a lot to me—to all of us. I know things have been rough, but I want you to do everything you can to fight this. We love you, and we'll do anything to make sure we don't lose you again."

He doesn't look at her. He can probably use the affection, but he's not sure how to even begin accepting it. The rusted gears of Sasuke's mind crunch in on themselves in a shameful protest. He doesn't know what has beckoned Ino to care when he never gave her so much as a thought. Not unless it concerned—

"Even Sakura," Ino says, and Sasuke feels as if the maggots inside him just layed eggs in his throat. He shuts his eyes, covers his face with a pale hand and tries to dry swallow the parasitic spawn. "I know Forehead has been distant lately. But I also know some part of her still misses you."

The words pin him in the gut, and Sasuke doesn't want to cling to them. He wants to leave the pebbled hopes of Naruto's buoyant smiles and the feel of Sakura's small hands tangled into the fabric of his blue genin top behind him. But he feels it creeping. "How can you be so sure?"

"I told you," Ino says, "I'm a sensor."

When Ino leaves, he doesn't get the chance to ruminate on her words. He's taken by the slightest whimpers coming from the bathroom. "Naruto-kun, it's not just that, I can't—I can't do this every day."

"Hinata…" Naruto says, and his voice is full of regret.

"Please," Hinata gasped, and her breaths come out choked, short and fast. And each sound is a spear to Sasuke's chest. "Just try. They'll take b-better care of him than—"

"Hinata-chan, _please_ , he needs us."

"He needs a _professional."_

"He needs a friend."

Sasuke listens to the sounds of her soft sobs until she falls asleep. Then he listens to the sounds of Naruto's. Sasuke wishes he was dead.

They already took away all his weapons, but he can probably still burn a hole in his chest with Amaterasu. He decides against it though because nobody would be able to exterminate the flames. It would probably just become another mess for Naruto to clean.

In the morning, he's putting on his second nin sandal when Naruto comes down the hall. "Teme?"

Sasuke doesn't say anything, can't quite find the words with how the fledglings have hatched in his stomach and ate it out raw.

"Please don't go, Sasuke," Naruto says, his steps coming too close. Sasuke's fingers shake on the zipper of his sandal and he grits his teeth. He doesn't want to leave, but coming back to Konoha was a mistake.

" _Please,_ " Naruto rasps, his voice sore and peeled back tender. Sasuke can't stop his hand from stilling completely. He makes the blunder of meeting Naruto's eyes, which are far more desperate than his voice. "We want you here. I swear it."

Sasuke looks away and swallows, fingers wobbling against the cool metal. "Okay," he says. He lets Naruto lead him to the kitchen and make him something small to eat.

Later that day, Naruto comes with bottles of prescription pills and a timid smile. "Just a little something to help you sleep." Sasuke just stares.

It was one thing to be drugged by Orochimaru, but there's the scant sense of betrayal when he takes the bottles from Naruto. Still, he doesn't ask what they are for. Nor does he complain. Only swallows them dry and prays they make him a better man.

* * *

Sasuke sleeps better from the medication, and hallucinates less because of it too. Instead of the harrowing emptiness and carnal need to escape, there's just static. Long, and constant, blurring every emotion until all that's left is the mechanics.

His skeleton is a skeleton now, not a prison. His eyes are eyes now, not Madara's madness. Sakura's absence is Sakura's absence now, not love lost.

And Sasuke doesn't quite feel like a person anymore, but he supposes it's preferable to the soulful aches he used to have. He can't say for sure though. He doesn't really remember them.

The nightmares still come around every so often, and Sasuke still cuts himself open at times. But he does it more quietly, and he is always conscious during it, despite the gaps of cognizant motivation. It feels like a part of the mechanics at first. Wake up, eat something, dig a kunai into the left shin _like so._ Naruto and Ino help him clean up when it happens, and Sasuke does what he can to avoid it when Hinata is around. But sometimes the mechanics have a tendency to malfunction when she talks about the baby.

When it does happen around her, Naruto gets him so doped up that days pass and Sasuke wonders if he is present for a second of it. He doesn't feel angry about it though. He doesn't feel anything at all.

Still, he can tell something is wrong.

He can tell in the moments when he sits by Itachi's grave, staring at the name _Uchiha_ and wondering why it reads foreign. He can tell when he rests by the branch near Sakura's window and the static in his head just gets louder. He can tell when he looks in the mirror and he can't see Indra's regal features staring back at him, telling him, _We made a mistake._

Sasuke skips out on the pills every so often, and each time it's like he's been doused in ice cold water. The nightmares leave him sick to death, but at least he gets to watch Sakura sleep and remembers that there are beautiful things beyond the grey. And maybe he doesn't deserve those beautiful things, but _Gods_ it's just so nice to remember what love feels like. And he always feels it when he looks at her—just like in the cemetery, when she looked so small and cold and brilliantly defiant. Sasuke felt the rivers. He felt them everywhere.

Sasuke never stays off them for long though, because he carries more noise than melodies and Naruto looks like he's going to die every time Sasuke tries to bleed himself dry. Ino only has so much chakra to spend and Hinata can only pretend she doesn't know what's happening in the guest room for so long. So even though he doesn't care for them, he takes them.

Naruto encourages him to go the cemetery one day, while Ino is stitching up his arm again. He knows Naruto is only saying this because he did it with Susanoo this time. It's always a bad day when he uses Susanoo. But sometimes he just needs that burning sensation. It makes him feel close to his kin. His dead, war-torn kin.

"Just talk aloud and see if it helps, y'know," Naruto suggests, shrugging awkwardly, before meeting Sasuke's eyes. "I mean…I think Itachi owes you a conversation, don't you?"

Sasuke wants to break his face for it, but he's too tired and Ino has a mission just like him soon. _It's too much,_ Kakashi had once said. Sasuke thinks so too.

Itachi owes him _nothing,_ he knows. Itachi owes him _everything_ , he thinks. Sasuke loves him too much to ask.

So Sasuke says, "Yeah." Then he leaves after Ino heals him to go watch Sakura through her bedroom window.

* * *

When Sasuke learned Naruto was going to have a kid, the news initially threw him in a maelstrom of confusing, disconcerting emotions. He knew he was going to have to interact with this kid—it was the idiot's, after all. And the thought had plagued him, made Sasuke uneasy, if only because he knows what a fucking mess he is.

But he eventually warmed up to the idea, was almost even looking forward to playing the part of a psuedo-uncle for the child. Maybe the kid could inspire him into normalcy. Maybe they would bond over how Hinata was so obviously too good for Naruto. Maybe he could show them a jutsu or two.

But nearly 12 weeks into the pregnancy, Hinata miscarries.

Now Sasuke isn't sure what to do with his hand, standing like a blemish of black grime inside white hospital walls. The smell of antiseptic is everywhere and it makes him want to _run._ He hates it. Hates how the world went from red to white after the massacre. Hates what Kabuto did to the bodies. _Fucking four-eyed snake scumbag, it was **your** fault._

Sasuke sees Naruto come with a bag of gourmet food that carries smells too strong. At least it kills the sterile scents. "I know she won't be hungry," Naruto says, looking miserable. "But just in case."

Sasuke didn't bring anything. Not flowers or a card or proper condolences. And he knows that with all the grieving he's done in his lifetime, it's a pitiful defect that he's no good at consoling. But Naruto needs him, and so does Hinata, and so he's here, acutely containing the itch to set the building ablaze.

"When I come back from my mission," Sasuke says. "I can get another place to stay. Give you two some space."

Naruto nods slowly. "Thanks Sasuke. I figured we'd need it too. And I...Well, I already asked Kakashi. He said you can stay in his apartment." Naruto avoids his eyes in a way that suggests he's ashamed. But Sasuke understands. He doesn't think he should be left alone either. And his ego has been shattered too deeply to protest this too.

They walk to the room together and Sasuke doesn't eye the slump of Naruto's shoulders or the wet glaze of his eyes because it's not really anything less than he expected. They reach a plaque that reads _130B_ and Naruto reaches for the knob. But he never fully opens it, the two of them stopping short in their tracks by a sound.

"Hinata, don't say that…" Sasuke hears a voice. _Her_ voice. And when he peers through the glass window, he sees her too.

Hinata is slumped in on herself, sobbing so hard that Sasuke winces with each sharp gasp. Sakura is petting her dark hair, gentle, and slow. "Hinata," she calls.

"It's true," Hinata says, looking so small and alone. She tilts her chin up and Sasuke can see her face then. Her cheeks are red and her skin is so white she could blend right into the walls. "It's true, I can't! When otousan finds out—" Naruto visibly cringes next to him.

"Hinata, _don't_ ," Sakura warns, voice so sweet, yet stern and everything Sasuke has been craving. Even the meds can't tell him otherwise. "Not another word, I mean it. This kind of thing happens all the time, there's _nothing_ wrong with you."

"That's not true," Hinata shakes her head, her voice a choked warble. "I bet—I mean—if it were Hanabi—"

Naruto rips the door open so hard, the sound is thrown in echoes all along the corridor. He haphazardly tosses the food onto a counter not meant for it, and grips his wife so fiercely that Sasuke feels like he's getting whiplash just witnessing the ardor. "Don't you **ever** say that shit again," Naruto says.

And Hinata weeps into his warmth. "Naruto-kun…"

The restless thunder of Sasuke's body increases tenfold. He watches, feeling like an intruder, feeling naked, feeling fevered. And then he tilts to gaze towards Sakura, the look in her face suggests she must feel the same.

Then she must notice him staring because she looks at him. Instantly, he sees her taken by a quiver, lips parting then closing, eyes big and wide and effortlessly beautiful. So _green_. She looks away, snatches at her clipboard like a child with a security blanket, scurrying out of the room.

Sakura tries to walk right past him, eyes averted, but Sasuke isn't going to let her get away so easy this time. Not after last night.

He shuts the door behind her, grabs her too-thin, too-cold wrist. She squeaks the moment his fingers touch her, and she's pulling back in weak protest.

"Sakura," he says, putting just a bit more force into his hold, trying to pull her closer while she struggles to worm free. "Sakura, just _hold on_."

"Not now," She says, her voice a panicked whisper. And she's so _close,_ so close he can see the fatigue on her face, he can taste her scent wafting through his nostrils, and if he bends down far enough he thinks he can kiss the nape of her neck.

There's a million things screaming in his head. _I saw you._ He wants to say. _You smell like rain and gravel and mourning._ He wants to say. _You smell like **me.**_ He wants to cry. Press her sweet lithe body against those hideous white walls and make her need him in all the ways he needs her. (And _oh gods_ he needs her _everywhere_.) _Tell me it's not all for nothing._

But he doesn't do that.

"Then when?" Sasuke asks instead. His thumb smoothes over her wrist to calm her but she only shivers, pulling away like she's trying to crawl out of her skin.

"I have to go," Sakura says, jerks her wrist free, and turns away.

He tries to snatch her up with his left hand before he remembers he doesn't have a left hand anymore. _Oh._ And Sakura continues to move away, nearly tripping over her own two feet to scamper down the hall

Sasuke watches, desperately wishing he is someone she would stay for—

knowing she had once wished the same.

* * *

 **A/N:** Idk why I say I'm gonna post every two weeks, I obviously suck at sticking to that schedule and need to admit it already. [insert You Played Yourself meme]

But sorry for the lateness anyway. My excuse this time is that it's SS month and I've been trying to make some art pieces and also celebrate some of the artists/authors in fandom. Honestly, it's nuts how we have this self-made community of content creators who organize things like SS Month and share their work with us. I consume way more than I create and I'm so grateful to have the ability to do that FOR FREE because of the artists and writers and graphic editors out there. I really want to make a habit of leaving more reviews and comments on pieces, because I know how much energy goes into it and I want to give it back. Fandom is just fucking awesome and I love all of y'all for it!

As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	14. Heartthrob

The camp they set is rife with silence and agitation, not unlike most missions, but something is different with this one.

Despite Nara's calm and apathetic disposition, Sasuke can tell he is livid. His right hand keeps palming the pocket he keeps his cigarettes in, and the turn of his jaw is twitching, probably itching to chain smoke like he has since the start of the mission. But he doesn't because tonight they are too close to enemy lines.

Despite the frigid cold, they'd be going without a fire. Just blankets, soldier pills, and water. They're even resting on the thick bodied branches of Konoha's trees to avoid leaving obvious footprints.

 _This is a reconnaissance mission,_ Shikamaru had said at least six times since the start of the mission. _We cannot be seen._

If anyone else were leading the mission, Sasuke would have thought it excessive. But it's Nara, and if he's being overly cautious, there's probably a good reason for it.

Sasuke suspects it has to do with him, lone arm trembling and head buried beneath six feet of ash. But he thinks it must be more than that too. Handicapped or not, he can hold his own and everyone knows it.

"That's it—I need to ask," Kiba says, and Sasuke already knows something stupid is about to come out of his mouth. "Why the hell do you keep staring at him?"

"Huh? Who?" Ino says, so dull-witted and obvious that Sasuke thinks it would be catastrophic if she were ever interrogated.

"You!" Kiba says, scrunching his nose until it mirrors the nin-dog curling against him.

"I'm not doing anything!" Ino hisses, her head rivets so fast it's a wonder it doesn't snap right off. She glares hard at him, like she's reprimanding Inuzuka for noticing her gawking for three days. Sasuke is just glad her eyes are finally off of him.

 _"Shh,"_ Kaito intervenes. "Keep it down." He's the only one in the team that's not part of the annoying band of genin Sasuke once knew. There's a strange comfort in that—along with the fact that he's relatively quiet and docile.

"You've been looking at Sasuke like Akamaru does a piece of meat since we left Konoha," Kiba says, his voice only marginally softer. "Aren't you dating Sai? Either way, it's _Sasuke_ —" Sasuke tries to ignore them, hone in on the hiss of the wind.

"—he's not going to sleep with you." It doesn't work.

"Kiba, you crude, dog-breathed shit stain," Ino whisper-shouts. "If you keep yapping, I'll knock your ass right off that branch!"

" **No,** you will not," Shikamaru says, sounding as if he wanted to be anywhere but here. "Ino, stop staring at Sasuke. Kiba, shut your trap. You're both going to agitate your teammates—primarily me."

"Oh please," Ino mumbles, just loud enough for Sasuke to hear. "You're always agitated these days." But then she's turning on her side, pulling her thin blanket up to her pink nose. Shikamaru rolls his eyes, the only indication that he heard her before wisely choosing to ignore it.

A thick quiet sets in, and Sasuke can hear his harsh breath as much as he can feel it. He tries to focus on the bright strip of moon, the thick stitching of his blanket, the grainy texture of bark against his fingers—anything but the aches in his body. He desperately itches to ignite Susanoo, if only to feel his body come aflame. Fuck, he just needs some _relief._

"Sasuke, get over here. I need to talk to you," He hears Shikamaru call. A growl is born and dies in his throat, because he already knows he's been caught. When he looks up, he sees Kaito staring at him, and Ino looking like she's trying not to.

Sasuke shifts his weight, standing on legs that feel as if they might fall right off. He wonders if he can chalk the shaking of his arm up to the cold. He pushes off his branch with a single stride and lands on Shikamaru's.

Sasuke can see every hard line around the scrunch of red nose and cheeks beneath those worn, inquisitive eyes. Sasuke can't help but think that Nara looks far older than even most shinobi his age. And he imagines his own face must look much worse.

"Ino said you've been having withdrawals," Shikamaru says.

For a fleeting moment, Sasuke imagines himself strangling Ino, before consciously shoving the brutal image down in an overflowing mental trunk of his unwanted rage.

"Have you been hallucinating since we left Konoha?"

"No," Sasuke lies. It doesn't matter. The hallucinations are nonviolent and brief enough for the lie to pass. Still, Shikamaru gives him a dubious look, and it's like grime coating his every exposed nerve.

"Is that all?" Sasuke presses, wanting to just be done with this conversation and this mission so he can just see Naruto and Sakura again. He hasn't seen them in _days._

"I just need you to be honest with me," Shikamaru says, leaning back into oak trunk so wide it looks like it might swallow him. "There's a number of concerns right now, some involving the members of this squad and I need to know if you're one of them."

"I'm not," Sasuke says. "If anything, you should be worried that there's a chunin in the squad."

"Kaito is the most qualified person for his position here, other than Akamaru," Shikamaru says. "He's the least of my problems." He nods over to Sasuke's cloaked shoulder, calculating eyes trailing down the length of his side. "What about your arm? I can't imagine you'll have great accuracy with shuriken when it's shaking like that."

"This is a reconnaissance mission," Sasuke says, repeating Shikamaru's earlier words. "We won't be seen."

"Don't be a smartass, Uchiha."

"You're asking if I can throw _shuriken_ correctly," Sasuke quips, and he doesn't bother to keep the strain from his voice—he's beyond his limit. Ino has been staring at him, waiting for him to snap this whole trip, Kiba's perpetual, obnoxious commentary is even more annoying than the dobe's, and Sakura should have been on this mission, but now he has to worry about _two_ sensors tracking his erratic chakra instead of one.

Shikamaru sighs, palms his head in nothing short of irritation. "Just don't screw this up." He crosses his arms. "I'll have Ino check on you before we leave in the morning. Get some rest, I'm not putting you on duty tonight."

Sasuke doesn't nod, or give any clear indication he heard the order. He just returns to his branch and curls against the trunk with the elegance of a capricious child. He loosens his thin cloak off his shoulders and tucks his chin enough for his hair to veil his face. He feigns sleep through posture alone, refusing to do so much as close his eyes. It doesn't matter. In the shinobi world, there's two ways to go about your teammates: Pretend you're not watching, or just do it openly.

He hears them trade off shifts to keep watch. And the cold settles thick in his sore, fevered muscles in a painfully pleasant way. It's nearly midnight when he feels a slight weight shift on the end of his branch.

Sasuke doesn't even glance at the chunin. "What?" He asks, trying not to sound annoyed, or like he's been daydreaming of ripping his own skin off for the past two hours.

"Can't sleep again?" Kaito asks, his voice so distant and calm it felt like it was forged in the night sky.

"Hnh," Sasuke grunts.

"Is it the mission?"

Sasuke considers not responding, but decides against it. The less heads rolling in elusive questions and grim fantasies, the better. "No."

Kaito frowns in a way that suggests determination. Maybe he doesn't believe him, or maybe he's stupid enough to think he can serenade away a stranger's childhood traumas by morning.

"I know it's not my place," Kaito begins. "But you don't seem well."

"You're right," Sasuke says. He tilts his head to see past rotting foliage, towards a blackened, starry sky. "It's not your place."

There's a stunned silence, and Sasuke fully expects the nin to leave, possibly after mumbling a clumsy apology. But he doesn't. Kaito just chuckles, forced and awkward.

"You know, you remind me of a friend," the chunin says. "We were in ANBU together, her and I. She taught me a pretty neat trick—" His eyes flit to Kaito's dark ones, the way his mouth twitches and knees buckle in on the next phrase, "Keeps the noise down."

Sasuke can already tell he puts this nin on edge. He doesn't blame him. He knows his chakra has been turbulent and he kind of feels like the timebomb Ino has been treating him as too. But Sasuke also knows his trigger already went off. He's just been trying to keep up with the devastation.

"If you concentrate your chakra around your eardrums, you start to hear your pulse a little louder," Kaito says, and closes his eyes, forces himself to relax. The Rinnegan traces the sensor's yellow chakra, marvels at how it simmers in, like it's been dipped in a warm bath. "When I'm on safe grounds, I make it so it's all I hear. Sometimes it's just a nice reminder to know you're alive."

Sasuke quietly studies Kaito, the soft line of his lips, and the downcast of his eyes even when he opens them. He wonders if the shinobi who taught him this "trick" is dead, or what other tragic stories must accompany this chunin for him to take _comfort_ in his heartbeat—

when Sasuke spends most days just wishing his would stop.

* * *

Ino's hands move methodically over his muscles, pressing gently at key points where Sasuke felt the greatest strain. The sun is gone too early again and everything about this winter is too cold. Ino's teeth are clattering against one another like fine glass, the ice blue of her eyes gliding over the aches of his rigid body.

"If he's this concerned about withdrawal, why isn't he just ordering you to feed me more medication?" Sasuke asks, sounding slightly less cynical than he feels.

Ino huffs part of a laugh or sneer, and her breath comes through in a thick vapor. "I told him it wouldn't be a better trade off with all the side effects."

"And you believe that?" Sasuke asks.

"Uh, _yeah_ ," Ino says, slides a dry, pink tongue over her cracked lip, eyes cemented to her hands. Sakura looked like that too, when she was healing his and Naruto's bleeding appendages. "I wouldn't have given Naruto most of that crap if you weren't on active duty and Hinata wasn't pregnant at the time. You don't need drugs, Sasuke. You need support."

Her hands move to his left shoulder, and he gasps at the sudden pressure. It feels like her chakra is penetrating bone marrow and soothing as it is, it feels violating. He doesn't remember Kabuto's quick checks being like this. But then again, Sasuke had a tendency to cut those short, if not outright refuse them.

"But unfortunately," Ino says, "You're a shinobi like the rest of us—and that makes you damned to feel alone no matter how many people are with you."

"Does she feel that way too?" Sasuke asks before he can stop himself. He hates himself for it. He can't tell if Ino's presence is disarming of he's just hopelessly desperate to hear from someone who has answers.

Ino is startled, her lips parting and her eyes growing into wide, cold mirrors. Sasuke can see his naked need reflected through them.

"You really care about her, don't you?" She asks.

Sasuke snarls in offense. "She's my teammate."

Ino is quiet, hands still, and he can see her eyes searching for something in his face before she turns her gaze past him. When he looks close enough, he can just make out Shikamaru's figure reflected in her icy blue iris.

"We really thought you left, Sasuke," she says. "We didn't think you were ever coming back." Ino looks down at her hands, the color past pink and bordering red from the cold. Her nailbeds are brown with buried dirt. His are too. "Sakura, she… We mourned you, Sasuke. It was like...like you _died._ "

Sasuke doesn't want to hear this. Cherished as Ino is, she's not the one he needs to beg for forgiveness. But he knows that pain is shared and Sakura's hurt is Ino's too. They're connected. Just like him and Naruto. And so he whispers it anyway, laying a firm hand around her wrist, hoping to feel the presence of a single, blooming blossom through the contact. A tremor runs through instead. "I know. I'm sorry."

Her other hand slowly clamps down on his and he feels like a hostage. It's cold, and the grip is strong with the kind of hurt that Sasuke often tries to daydream away. But he doesn't resist it this time.

"I'll save it," he tells her.

* * *

Sasuke studies the iron bars below, rusted and nearly buried in snow and dead foliage.

The hideout is underground, like most hidden lairs, but the entrances are rarely this small and narrow. It resides in a hollowed out tree, between a thicker branch and the trunk, sealed with an area genjutsu that his eyes can see through with comical ease.

"It's even smaller than I thought it'd be," Ino whispers. "How is Akamaru going to fit?"

"Oh, he'll fit just fine, don't you worry." Inuzaka's smile is somehow both mocking and prideful. He glides a hand over his prized nin-dog and Akamaru lets out a bare whimper, despite the eccentric flailing of his tail.

"This is the safest entrance our intel gives us," Shikamaru says, before inclining his head towards Ino and Kaito, who sit in the rear. "How many can you sense?"

"Not as many as there should be with a hideout as big as the report suggested," Ino says, frowning.

"Is it concentrated or scattered?"

"Concentrated for sure," Kiba says. "I can smell them right from here. And a bunch of chemicals too."

"Yeah, it's mostly clumped together, but I can still sense a few signatures on the outskirts," Ino says.

"How many?" Shikamaru asks.

"Probably three or four," Ino says.

"I feel four," Kaito confirms.

Shikamaru stares forward, pensive. His eyes are locked on the gateway. "Change of plans," he decides. "We're going to rely on Kiba's nose for tracking. Ino, Kaito. You two stay on the outskirts."

"What? I'm the _medic_ ," Ino says.

"And I'm the captain," Shikamaru dismisses. "I'll give you the signal if we need back up."

"What about the chemicals?" Ino asks. "What if they're toxic?"

"Then more reason for you to stay behind," Shikamaru says, a rough edge to his voice that demands submission. "Are we clear to go?"

Ino looks like she wants to protest further and even Kaito looks peeved. But they hold their tongue. Kaito murmurs a reluctant, "You're clear."

"Good. Stay within a five mile radius. If you can't for any reason, contact me with Shintenshin," Shikamaru says. Then they're off, slipping through a dubious passage with Sasuke's Sharingan rippling in the wake of his genjutsu.

The hallways are obscenely cramped and monotonous, clad in blacks and greys and dirt. There's no trace of light, and it's frigid yet stuffy with an odd fume that Sasuke can only hope isn't poisonous.

Sasuke is leading, the only member of the group who retains sight, and relying heavily on Akamaru who snarls or growls when he smells a nin down a pathway. Their steps are a practiced quiet, so soft that all that's left is silence, bleak corridors, and more silence. Sasuke can hear the mellow _thump-thump_ of his heart and it almost sounds like the taps of a clock. _Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock._

"What are we even looking for?" Sasuke whispers, trying to discern one long, rotting passageway from the other.

"Anything," Shikamaru says.

"There _isn't_ anything," Sasuke says, frustrated.

"Wait, shut up," Kiba says. They stand in a long stretch of strained silence, listening. But nothing comes.

The cool, damp fumes grate Sasuke's throat and stiffens his skin. He wants to shrug it off his skeleton, peel it away. _Snakeskin._ Sasuke has never understood Orochimaru's coveted newness like he does now. He breathes, channels chakra to his eardrums. It gets louder.

 _Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock._

Finally, Shikamaru whispers, "What do you hear?"

"A conversation." Kiba says, before finally turning on his heel and walking forward. "And it sounds important. C'mon, this way."

"You're about to walk into a wall." Sasuke sneers, grasps Kiba's shoulder and guides him down the aisle.

They move down narrow halls until there's a sliver of light peeking at the end of a corridor. And then there's a wordless, unified shift in their movements. They're faster, yet meticulous. And when they get closer, they can hear an exchange of voices.

"...about the expedition?"

A deep, musky voice echoes. "Nothing."

"What do you mean _nothing?_ " A high pitched voice growls. "It's an Uzumaki and this was the fifth one made. Your sensors should be more reliable than this."

"They _are_ reliable," a man says with a strained sort of anger. "But we don't even know what country to look in. We're about to set off to search in Ame now."

They sound so far that Sasuke can't help but peak through the corner. He realizes the hall leads to a crumbling balcony, and they're hearing the voices of a candlelit room down below. He crouches low and moves closer, grateful that Shikamaru trusts his judgement enough to follow. He can just make out the figures of a dark haired man and two women, one who is slouched in a corner desk, writing. Beside her is a teal haired child, shackled and gagged, lying still on the floor.

"We're running out of time," the woman says. "We don't know how the nations are going to respond after the deposition."

"We can guess," the bandit replies, a smile in his voice.

"Do I look like a fucking Kage to you?" She snaps. "If we want to see tangible results, we can't just direct our people on guesses and prayers. But I guess _you_ wouldn't know that, since you—"

"Rina, you need to _relax_ ," another feminine voice pitches in, placing her pen down and shifting in her seat. Sasuke just makes out a different movement in his peripheral, and he turns his head to see Akamaru pawing at Kiba's leg. His stomach starts to squeeze. "They'll probably just tighten the security a little. It's no big deal. And besides, we have so many clans in ou—"

"And Konohagakure alone practically has two _Gods_ , Yuki."

"What about the guy in the northern hideout? His plan could work, if we coordinate it right."

She scoffs. "Fat chance."

Sasuke watches Kiba try to hush his nin-dog, but then Akamaru clamps his mouth over Kiba's arm and starts dragging him backwards. Shikamaru is there in the next moment, and there's a whispered exchange before he signals Sasuke to come back.

"We need to retreat," Shikamaru says, voice so dry, so _practiced_. And the _tick-tock_ gets replaced with a wild _th-thump th-thump th-thump._

Sasuke leads in haste, wishing he had his second arm again and maybe a third so he could just snatch them all up and **move**. He can't let it happen. He can't lose more people. And neither can _she._

When they reach the entrance they came through, Kiba has already prepared them for the two nin waiting, and Shikamaru's signature jutsu has them planted still for Sasuke's methodical incapacitations.

"Out. Now _._ " Shikamaru commands before the last body even meets the ground.

Kiba is pulling an unconscious bandit up by the arm. "Shouldn't we ta—"

" _Now_." Shikamaru growls, vicious, and Kiba drops the body in an instant. "We don't have time."

Sasuke is pacing around his head while scampering up the hollowed tree. That pasty Root-nin will never accept him as Team 7. Naruto will be disappointed, and Naruto already has too much to be disappointed about.

They're out, and the open air frees Sasuke's lungs. First it's dead leaves and frosted moss and everything once green and now white.

And then it's blood.

" _Shit_ ," Kiba breathes.

Lying yards from the exit is Kaito amongst the snow. He's all brown and green and red. His mouth is agape, his eyes match, and there's an endless hole sitting where his heart should be.

The gore is splattered **everywhere**. On tree bark, on snowy forest floor, and all over Sasuke's mind. There's so much of it and it couldn't all be Kaito's. It _couldn't._

Sasuke's eyes dart about frantically. His chakra is rupturing inside the left arm he doesn't have and Shikamaru is telling him to get a hold of himself. But he doesn't see Ino nor her chakra and _Gods,_ Sakura is going to be so upset. She'll never forgive him for this.

"Yamanaka," he says. "We have to find Yamanaka."

* * *

 **A/N:** More of a short, transitional chapter, but I hope y'all like it! Also, I want to announce that I have really exciting excuse for why this chapter is late this time. I'm working on a Sasusaku Fanzine!

I will be helping the production process as well as be contributing as a SS fanfic writer and a fanartist, and I vehemently encourage all writers and artists to take a look because we have just started accepting applications for the zine. So if you'd like to be a part of it, consider filling one out!

You can find application forms and information at .com. The front page should have my name and icon under affiliates. If you're having any trouble finding it, or have any questions, don't hesitate to message me! I'm very excited about the project and my only hope is that I can get all other SS fans hyped up for it too :)

As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	15. Umbra

Sakura can't sleep well anymore. She feels like she's being watched. She hates going back to the apartment after work. It's cold and quiet and not empty at all.

 _Okaasan is there._ She thinks. Mebuki is disappointed in her. She sees how soft she still is for Sasuke and she's terribly disappointed. Sakura is too.

She's guilty and ashamed and she wishes she didn't let everyone die. She wishes she didn't punch off a man's head, or let a Hyuga's hand get burned in an explosion, or sentence her mother to death by falling for a beautiful boy who lost everything. But she did.

She did and she can't make it _stop._

Sasuke knows, and this might be the worst of it. He saw right through her that day in the hospital. He knew he still had a firm grasp on her wilted heart. His eyes looked at her so confidently and his fingers curled firm and unnervingly gentle.

He touched her like one does a frightened pet but Sakura doesn't want to be owned anymore. And it should have been her who sat amongst civilian graves instead of her okaasan but then who would have saved Ino?

Sakura tucks herself into bed, tries to block it out. Block _everything_ out. But it follows her in her sleep.

That strange man with Sharingan eyes lined with an azure calm visits her more often. She doesn't know him but he comes to her enough for her to think she just might. The guilt scoops out chunks of her sanity with every dream.

.

.

.

The worst of them is when she finds herself shaking behind a curtain of hair that's so close it can only be her own. It's dark. Just like him. It looks nothing like flowers. More like the soil encasing them.

And there's a familiar man laying before them, face wrinkled in both age and agony. He's whimpering, calves shot through with arrows, leaking blood— _their blood,_ she seems to know. There's a small girl in her lap, and her face is covered in it too.

It makes perfect sense, her strange body thinks. Here, between slabs of stone and arches of gold, kin lies bleeding dry—her otousan's legs, her imouto's skull, her jarred heart. They're all bleeding out inside their family shrine with the company of a single guest—her white robed deva, her red-eyed reaper.

"Please don't," The elderly man weeps, shaking.

But the man with Sharingan eyes is still stepping closer, blade drawn, every ridge of his body is hard and regal and furious.

And she just sits there, watching, but not watching. She's still trying to will consciousness back into the gore stained head in her palm. _My imouto. My beautiful imouto._ A voice both hers and not echoes in her head. _Otousan, what did you do?_ Her hand pushes a once white, now red cloth against the girl's forehead. Her fingers are shaking. _I only had one, what did you do?_

"I warned you," the God with blood soaked tomoe says, voice deep and even—filled with all that tempts her. "I'm not as forgiving as my brother. You should have stayed away from Ōtsutsuki lands."

"You're right," the rugged man— _otousan_ —whimpers. He's trying to crawl back, drag his body across the ground with his arms because his legs still have arrows sticking out of them. "Y-you're right, I shouldn't have," he croaks. "It's okay if you want my daughters, keep them, I was wrong, just pl—"

"Shut up!"

"Take them!" the rugged man cries, both a demand and a plead. "Take them! And my army—take my army! I know about the coronation and if you just use my army, you can get it back!" Puloman smiles then, crooked and frantic. His grey hair is a tangled, sweaty mess against his skin. "You can get your birthright back!"

He looks pathetic, she thinks. Her father does not look like a King anymore, only a corpse. The reaper is moving closer.

"P-please! Darling!" Puloman says, and she realizes he's not looking at the man with Sharingan at all anymore. He's looking at her, as if she's the one with blade in hand.

"Sweet, sweet child," he says, and the words snap her in two. She is _anything_ but. "My soft, gentle girl. You are my _kin,_ " Puloman says, "You are my—"

" _Wretched filth,_ " The Uchiha, no— _Ōtsutsuki_ seethes. "Burdening your daughter even now—have you no shame?"

Their bodies are blurring and her cheeks are growing wetter. Her precious imouto is in her arms, and she's not moving.

 _Monster._ She thinks. But she isn't sure who she means. Maybe all of them. Their shrine walls beat away the seconds with her sister's heart and her torn will. Her Deva is raising his blade.

"W-wait," she whispers, her voice just sifting through the rush.

Both men look at her then. Her parent is hopeful, silently imploring. Her deva is intent and… _submissive_.

She realizes with a deep terror that this powerful man will stop here and now if she asks him to. He is giving her _choice_. And she is horrified by the prospect.

She's breathing hard, and her heart is beating so violent and quick that it's a wonder it doesn't burst right from her chest. They're waiting on her, she knows. And she's waiting too. Then it comes.

It takes a sound. A single, soft gasp from the small girl in arms and that is all she needs. The anger—raw, furious, _burning_ anger unfurls. She knows which life she will choose.

"Please, just...not…" she takes a breath, and she looks into her Otousan's face even as she speaks to the Ōtsutsuki deity. She will embrace this moment for what it is. They are not Gods. They are Demons, with cursed wills and omen clad hearts, and hers is ripping open with each passing second. "...not in the temple."

She knows, with morbid certainty, those panic enameled eyes of her otousan will follow her.

Her lover's Sharingan gleam a wild red. She sees their every beginning, every ending, spinning with his tomoe—a soul contract awaiting the part of her lips and the death of a King. "Of course, my lady. How negligent of me."

.

.

.

But sometimes, (like tonight,)

sometimes she dreams of them _alone_.

It's when she's naked and needing and he's burning and hungry. His tongue curls along the crest of her breast and his left hand tucks neat between her thighs.

"You can't deprive me forever," he says, "You'll give in. It's already written inside." He fingers her hot little nub, then dips inside her wet empty. "Right here."

And she gasps, world blurring through pale pink lashes. "Sasuke."

" _Yes,_ " he hisses, tongue on her throat like a knife. Then there's nothing but her wound bleeding out beneath his hot mouth. "Yes. Say it again. Tell me what you want."

But it's never been about wants.

" _Oh_ , Sasuke-kun," she moans. "Why did you leave?" He was gone for _so_ she lost herself to the heartache.

Then he's spreading her legs wide, pushes inside of her until she's crying out her content.

"I'm here," he whispers, fingers curving up her softening jaw, his lips brush against hers, breath hot and silky. "I'm _here._ " He moves inside of her too deep, too sweet. It's a punishment for love like hers to be requited.

She's whimpering beneath him and he catches a tear on his tongue, prying her open again and again with each rock of his hips. _Closer._ He demands.

She can't say no. She needs it oh so bad. Everything is red. Everything is _white._

"I love you," she says. His hair is long and dusky and all over them. Her warlord, stripped clean of his armor but still bathing in his victim's fluid.

And he pours too, heart sodden with far too many reckless abandonments. He kisses her temple and pours. "Say it again," he pleads—pours. "Please, just one more time—"

"I love you." She's too raw for him, too needy. This ache is forever. "I love you Sasuke-kun, I will always—"

He kisses her. And pours and pours and pours.

 _Thank you._

 _._

 _._

 _._

She wakes up and she's shaking everywhere, her heart is pounding, and the apex of her thighs is unforgivably wet. _Fuck._ She's horrified. _Gods. Shit. **Fuck.** _She wants to forget it. It was just a dream. _That wasn't even Sasuke._ She tells herself.

And she's _wet_. She's sticky and oozing, and she desperately wishes someone was between her thighs, easing her need— _Not just someone._ she knows. But she omits this because Okaasan will hear.

It's just then the thought occurs to her that something might be wrong with her. That maybe Ino and Naruto and Kakashi's disapproving looks have been entirely justified all along. That she is in desperate need of something far beyond her reach and she just might die tonight if she doesn't get it.

 _Stop._ She thinks, pulling at her tresses as if they are reins for her reeling head. _You have it, Sakura. **You have it.** Just get it together. _ There are too many people counting on her for her to lose it now. There are too many rodents in the lab, waiting for an antidote.

She showers, throws clothes on, and heads to work early.

* * *

Sakura is just signing her name out when she feels his chakra. It's raw energy bursting out, roaring and potent. Her hand crumples the pen the same as it does paper. _Sasuke._

The appearance is too sudden for it to be anything but a Space-Time jutsu, she knows. And her stomach suddenly feels like it just got jammed in a grinder. She has the feeling that she should be running. She's _certain_ of it. But she doesn't know in which direction.

Sakura walks across the room with the stiffness of sentient stone. The door is cold when she pushes it open, and as she walks into the hall, it's like she's there for the first time. Pearl walls, antiseptic smells, and medics shuffling about, wearing candid looks that she hasn't felt in ages.

 _Fuck._ The mission must have gone terribly wrong if Sasuke is desperate enough to have to portal into this place he vehemently hates. But it can't be that bad if he still has the strength to be able to perform a space-time jutsu at all, right? Her teeth gnaw on her lip and she checks to make sure she still has all the necessary supplies in her coat.

And then she does the most courageous thing she has all year. She reaches out with her viridescent lifeforce until it grazes _his._ And she feels his chakra radiate against hers instantly. He feels inquisitive, frantic, _guilty_.

She feels another chakra signature with his, so faint she can't make it out. There's a terrible throbbing in her head that is asking why she hasn't started running yet.

"Oh, thank gods! You're still here!" Sakura hears, and she turns around to meet a medical assistant she can't quite recall the name of. "Tsunade-sama has requested you, Haruno-san. Yamanaka-san is terribly injured and..."

She doesn't even hear the rest. _No._

"Room?"

"F18."

Then she _runs._

That's an operating floor, she distantly recognizes, while she tries not to drown in the ramifications of every stupid mistake she's made since Sasuke came back. She knows the mission he just came back from—the mission that has just put Ino in an operating room.

And all she can think is that it should be **her** instead.

When she gets there, she doesn't even have time to sob or cry out. She just reacts, cleaning her hands, throwing on gloves, and moving fast to a table Tsunade and a few others are prepping Ino on.

All the cuts are in neat and precise locations, places where Ino would feel it without bleeding to death. But there's just so many that it looks like she might anyway. Her heart is slow and arrhythmic. Her legs have been badly burned. And there's two thin, curved, bloody structures sticking out of her elbows. And when they lift Ino's shirt and see the gaping incisions, Sakura realizes with a bottomless horror that those things are _her own ribs_.

There is no extensive guesswork to be made, Ino has just been through a brutal interrogation.

"Sakura! Check her brain," Tsunade says. "I need steady hands, there's been serious head trauma." Sakura doesn't even think anymore, she just gets to work.

Sakura has never been so entirely present and simultaneously absent during a procedure before. She is healing bad bruising and blood clots, tracing her brain pathways, then her chakra ones, fixing fried synapses, tending to hemorrhaging. She's losing a heartbeat, and she's getting it back.

She doesn't think of Ino as Ino in that moment, because she knows she will absolutely lose it if she does. She thinks of her as a product that needs fixing. A pale, half-dead product that she **must** fix.

They're hours in and Ino codes _again_. Then they bring her back and Tsunade tells Sakura to take a quick break. "You're dehydrated," Tsunade says.

Sakura knows this, because all she can feel is a thousand anvils exploding in her head. But it's the night shift now and they're short on staff so she would have to leave the room to hydrate. And she does not want to do that. "I don't care."

"I do," Tsunade says. "I can see you getting slower. If you pass out, you'll screw up her brain on your way down." Tsunade's not even looking at her, eyes glued to the little holes of reds and pinks just below Ino's breasts. "Just hydrate and come back."

So she does.

Sakura walks out through the corridors to the closest water fountain, wanting to be quick. But when she drinks from it, she can't quite manage to stop. She feels like she's been parched for _years._

She sees a stretcher roll by, and the white sheet blanketing the body is caked in blood—a promising sign that whoever is under it is surely dead. She's exhausted, and her head is throbbing, but she does not miss the green strands peeking out from the blanket.

And the world plummets again.

Sakura just stands there. Watches the stretcher roll down the hall and towards the morgue. Somewhere distant, she can hear harsh slapping of feet on tiled floor, panting and gasping, and then her name.

"Just got...here," A voice she thinks she knows says, breathless. "Did Sasuke…" More panting. "...come yet?"

Her head turns mechanically, the motion doll-like and unwilling. She sees Kiba, his cheeks tinted red, covered in sweat and snow and soil. His chest moves with his every wheeze.

"Yes."

"Is Ino—"

"I don't know," she says, the words rushed and rigid. Then Sakura goes back to the operating room.

* * *

Ino is wheeled out and the medical team leaves the room carrying an unsettling quiet. The other medics avoid meeting Sakura's eyes directly, and Tsunade doesn't offer any praise or sentiments of gratitude like she usually does. She just tells them she'll be in her office to do the paperwork, and they can go home.

Sakura would normally offer to help, or just write it for her instead. But Tsunade doesn't ask, and Sakura is too tired.

She sees a cloud-muffled sun when she leaves through the hospital doors. The chill hits her at once and she realizes she's still in plastic gloves and loose scrubs. Daylight reflects off the snow, burning holes through her eyes and making her headache impossibly painful. The smell of fumes and tar makes it incrementally worse too.

"Sakura."

She turns her head to see Shikamaru, slouched against the hospital wall with a cigarette in his mouth. He looks haggard, cold, and his lips are quivering with an almost hysterical edge that she would never think to see on him.

"Is she alive?" he asks.

"Yes," Sakura says, and the look of pure relief on his face is filed away somewhere in her mind as a piece of intimacy to hold onto. "She's in the ICU now," Sakura says. "Her lungs aren't great. She's swallowed something. Her heart is still arrhythmic. She'll probably code a few more times. But brain activity is stable," she recites with absolute professionalism. "And she's alive."

Shikamaru chews on his cigarette, inhales, turns his head, and puffs out a wad of smoke.

"It's my fault," he says, not really looking at her, or anywhere for that matter. "I shouldn't have put her on the team. I _knew_ I shouldn't have." He looks at his cigarrete with a certain distaste then. The vulnerability in his voice grows. "And Kaito is dead because of it too."

Sakura nods her head, knowing she should reply, but she doesn't. "It's cold out."

Shikamaru flinches, studies her eyes for a thick moment before looking away.

"Yeah," he says, with a notable crassness before he takes another drag from his cigarette. "I'll see you around." He flicks the smoking butt into the snow and walks back through the glass doors.

Her walk home feels like a dream, and everything is white and numbing and she thinks it might have nothing to do with the fact that it's winter.

Soon enough she's walking past the cracks she left on the sidewalk and grass outside her apartment building. And Sakura is just reaching for a dull, metal knob before she remembers,

 _Okaasan is inside._

Suddenly, something snaps hard and sharp and everything rushes to her temple. She almost feels her seal glow, trying to fight it back.

Her body is a sentient thing, it's moving fast despite the numbness in her muscles. She doesn't know how many times she skids on ice only to pick herself back up. Then she's halfway across Konoha, throwing the doors inside the Hokage tower open.

"How could you send her!?" Sakura cries. "How!?"

Kakashi looks startled, shoulders jolting with unreserved surprise. "Sakura?" He asks.

"Are you trying to punish me?" she asks, sounding exactly as hysterical as she feels. Her voice shakes as bad as her body once did when a stranger was inside of her. "Is this because I won't talk to Sasuke?!"

Kakashi winces, pushing his paperwork aside and stands. "Sakura, you need to get a hold of yourself," his voice comes out weak, and he looks terribly concerned. But Sakura can't really get herself to focus on that. She's in too deep, her head tumbling with the red.

"It's fucking _Ino!_ " she screams. "She's not a combat nin!"

Her latex fingers are still stained with Ino's blood and they're grasping at her arms. She's desperately trying to keep herself together but she thinks she might just be making it worse. She thinks she might have been making it worse for _years_ and now Ino might just die because of it.

"That's **enough.** " His expression is controlled and unforgiving now, having recovered from any initial turbulence. "Ino was more than capable of being put on that team."

Sakura slams her fist into the wall, and the roaring sound it comes with is as strong as the fracture. "Then why was I operating on her _all night_ , Sensei?!" She says. "How does that make _any_ sense to you?"

"You declined the mission, Sakura," Kakashi says, and he's walking towards her with careful, calculated steps. And she thinks there might be ANBU behind her doing the same. "Ino was the next best candidate. We all risk—"

"It's _Ino!_ " Sakura screams. "It's Ino! She's my—she's my—" She flinches, swallows, and the tears are streaming down, and she's just speaking through panicked gasps. She's gripping her arms hard and her fingers don't just have Ino's blood on them now. "You shouldn't have sent her! I don't give a rat's ass what Shikamaru said!" She heaves. "It shouldn't have been her!"

 _It should have been **me.**_

"Sakura, let's just sit down, okay?" Kakashi says, "Let's talk."

But she _is_ talking. She's _been_ talking, although not entirely with words, just like how kaasan used to and nobody listened to her either.

Sakura is bolting out of the tower, sobbing, her head ablaze. There's nothing but a single, high-pitched noise in her ears, and she can't feel anything but monochrome stained red.

She shouldn't have let a clan down. She shouldn't have sentenced her okaasan to death. And she shouldn't have fallen for a beautiful boy with brilliant, blood soaked tomoe in his eyes.

Then Sakura is bursting through her apartment door and she _feels_ her. She feels Mebuki everywhere. She's in the living room that the picture of Team 7 is hung up in, she's in the bed Sakura touched herself to thoughts of Sasuke on, and she's in the bathroom, staring at her through the mirror.

Sakura's shuffling through cabinets because her head feels like it's been electrocuted the way Sasuke intended to do in the the Land of Iron. _I'm sorry! **I'm sorry!** _Ino might die because of her and Kaasan will never forgive her for the things she did because she's dead now. (But surely alive.)

Her chakra is as erratic as her emotions, and she can't quite manage to get through the child-proof lock on her bottle of painkillers so she breaks it open instead. Okaasan is inside her and so is Sasuke and she doesn't want to feel either of them.

She's cupping pills and water from the bathroom faucet and she's swallowing both and then she's doing it again because she can taste Ino's blood from her gloved hands each time she shovels it into her mouth. This headache is going to split her mind open and she can't bear to lose Ino, the one consistently good thing she had since tousan died. And _gods_ she was such an avoidant bitch to her best friend. And Ino only ever wanted to help. Just like kaasan. And maybe even Sasuke too when he left her on a bench one night.

 _Why can't you just forgive him?_ Naruto had asked, but she doesn't know how to forgive someone who murders her in her sleep and Ino might be dead because of it.

 _You're going to get what you deserve_ , Mebuki had said, and Sakura **hates** when her okaasan is right.

Sakura is weeping and her Yin seal is activating without her wanting it to, so she reaches for another bottle and then another after that, until she's nearly out of pills but the headache won't go away. She smashes an empty bottle on the mirror and it cracks and she's screaming and the red noise is everywhere at once.

Then she sees Sharingan and Rinnegan in the splintered reflection and she starts screaming for an entirely different reason.

Sasuke's grip is bruising when he grabs her shoulder, whirls her around to face him.

"Get away from me!" She shrieks, puts her hands on his chest to shove him back, but he just snatches her wrist away.

"Open **_now._** " His voice is powerful and demanding and she hates it. She's struggling against him, pushing against his breastbone, trying to concentrate chakra. But her head is dizzy and her body is slowing down and it's getting so hard to _breathe._

Sasuke drags her closer, and his fingers inch towards her face. They just touch her lips when she makes a horrible, keening noise before her fist connects with his left shoulder. Then he's barreling backwards, his cry lost somewhere beneath the quake of her wall shattering and the rush of winter air blaring through the giant hole in her apartment.

The ringing in her ears gets louder, and Sakura's knees buckle in. She wants to reach for more pills, kill the headache, _kill the guilt,_ but her lungs feel like they're carrying the anvils from her head and she's drowning in her own gasps.

Then she sees Sasuke kneeling in front of her again, his features twisted, and his left shoulder looks horribly dislocated. He's panting and injured and _still_ too fast for her to keep up. She doesn't understand how she always manages to get left behind.

She cries, weak, "Don—"

His two long fingers dart into her mouth and the revolting noise she makes is nothing compared to the violent heave of her stomach. Then she's purging on them both.

She coughs, and her vision is hazing. She feels Sasuke's hand smack at her cheek and it stings.

"Stay with me," he says. "Don't close your eyes."

"Sasuke-kun," Sakura whines, and she's not sure why. She feels sick and dead everywhere and she just wants it to stop. She coughs, then heaves again, feeling a new round of bile churning.

There's a loud _bang,_ the reverberation of a door meeting a wall before springing back. She hears a voice. "Sakura!" And it's hard to tell, but she thinks it might be Kakashi's.

"Stay with me," Sasuke says again, his voice laced with something desperate. She's being dragged closer to him, and her stomach is pulling in seven different directions. Then he tosses her over his shoulder and the impact of her sternum smacking against his frame has her puking again.

Sasuke spins around to face Kakashi and steps from her bathroom to the bedroom. His voice is gruff and panicked, "Overdose."

Then everything is _consumed_ inside that ubiquitous, erratic chakra. It ripples through her head and knocks through her senses.

The wooden floors shift into white, linoleum tiles before the black takes her.


	16. Earthbound

Sakura feels terribly cumbersome coming to. There's light behind her eyelids, bright and repugnant and far too much for a porous mind. Some part of her notices that her headache is gone.

"Sakura-chan?"

"Naruto?" Sakura asks with a throat that feels sanded stiff and bare. She hears the harsh friction of a chair scraping the floor and her eyes squint open to see long strands of blonde hair.

And then Sakura remembers.

 _Ino…_

Her vision clears enough just to meet the dangerous, amber iris of her shishou. Tsunade looks calm. The kind of calm that is barely holding back an explosion.

Sakura tries to shift away, or at least break the eye contact. She can't quite manage it though.

"You're awake," Tsunade says, simple and flat.

The Godaime leans over and the first thing Sakura's keenly notices is the heavy purpling beneath her amber, bloodshot eyes. She's fishing for something in her pocket, then she grasps Sakura's chin with more tenderness than Sakura expects from a steel-plated face. Tsunade brings a penlight to Sakura's head, flashes a painful beam from one of her eyes to the other.

"Can you tell me your name?" Tsunade asks. Sakura gets a whiff of alcohol on her breath.

"Sakura," she says, and her voice comes out in an awful rasp that she doesn't recognize. Suddenly she's wondering if she actually _is_ still Sakura.

"Surname?" Tsunade asks.

"Haruno." Her voice sounds a little better this time.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sakura can see Naruto, Sai, and Hinata sitting quietly by the side. Naruto looks like he wants to say something—they all do—but Naruto is nearly bursting out of his chair. He stays quiet though. And Sakura imagines he must have been handed a pretty savage threat to look at her like _that_ and still stay put for her examination.

"Can you sit up for me?" Tsunade asks, and Sakura nods stiff before commanding her body to respond. It's delayed, and a little too forced for her liking, but she figures it's the dehydration.

Tsunade probably figures this too, studying her movements, before nodding in approval. She has Sakura follow an exaggerated motion of her finger with her eyes, and perform a simple stretch.

"Good. Any pain?"

"No."

"Can you tell me when your birthday is?"

"March twenty-eighth."

"Who's the current Hokage?"

"Kakashi Hatake—my old sensei."

"Good. And your occupation?"

"I'm a shinobi. And a medic. I work at this hospital."

"Show me. Channel chakra into your hand for me."

Sakura does as she's told, pushing her life energy into her palm with accuracy and precision that has always come second nature. Tsunade watches with a meticulous eye before nodding again. Sakura sets her hand down, and looks into the gooey warmth of Tsunade's honey pupils. It's a strange, unsettling contrast with the rest of her features.

"Who am I?"

"Tsunade Senju," Sakura responds, and there's a waver in her voice, glaring and unwanted, "my shishou."

"Great," Tsunade says, a cynical chipper slipping in. "Now that we've ruled out brain damage as either the cause or repercussions of this absolute catastrophe," Her voice grows colder, grained and unforgiving. "Why are you here, Sakura?"

It puts Sakura on edge, and she's folding into herself without really meaning to. She doesn't know what to say. She wasn't even supposed to wake up. "I don't know."

"Should I refresh your memory?" Tsunade asks, and this time Sakura does look away. "Tell me if this sounds familiar: The Uchiha came carrying you this morning with a dislocated shoulder, chakra depleted, covered in _your_ vomit, screaming like a hysterical child that you had overdosed."

It does refresh her memory, and Sakura remembers Sasuke's face. His features were blank, almost battle-driven in that way when his one-track mind has latched onto an objective and everything else was droned out in the tunnel vision.

She remembers his eyes, beautiful and dangerous, up close and way too personal. She remembers the way his name tasted in her mouth before she threw it up.

" _Then_ he promptly passed out and gave me **two** more patients in need of emergency care." Tsunade pauses. "Since _obviously_ , our all-nighter with Ino wasn't enough."

Naruto begins. "Baa—"

Tsunade cuts him off with a motion of her hand. "I'm not done."

Sakura focuses on a little lock sitting in the center of the window panel. It's white, like everything in the hospital. It's freezing inside, but Sakura thinks it might be warmer out. Her head is a mad scramble.

"Well?" Tsunade says, impatient and irate. "I'm waiting."

"I had a headache," Sakura says. There's tears in her voice.

"I'm drunk, not stupid. You'll have to do better than that."

"Baa-chan," Naruto voice calls out, defensive. "C'mon, go easy on her." Tsunade doesn't even turn her head to acknowledge him.

"Honestly, what the hell were you thinking, Sakura? You were just gonna go and off yourself? Leave us all the way your mother did you?" A sharp pain pinches through Sakura. Tsunade doesn't stop, "And look what good that did." Sakura's chest shrinks, ribs squeezing her lungs so tight she's sure they are popping between the cracks.

Hinata audibly gasps and Naruto cries in outrage. "What the hell, Baa-chan!"

"I'm sorry," Sakura chokes out. "I'm sorry," she says again. And she means it, her heart torn and aching and much too heavy to still be in her body. She has no idea why it still is. She could have sworn Sasuke snatched it out.

Sakura feels a set of warm hands on her from the opposite beside, one rubbing her hunched back and the other gathering her bony wrist. It's so warm with that fiery chakra, she doesn't need to turn her head to know it's Naruto.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Tsunade's voice cracks this time, and the weakness snaps Sakura's head towards her again. In the few moments that have passed, Tsunade's tired face has become terribly wasted. "What were you _thinking?_ "

Tsunade pulls Sakura out of Naruto's arms and into her own. Sakura can feel Tsunade's tears, wetting her crass, pink locks.

In all the years Sakura has known the Godaime, she doesn't think she's ever seen her so naked with affection. Nor sorrow. And Sakura's heart cracks from the feel of it, how _needy_ Tsunade's grip is around her.

There's a jarring relief searing through part of Sakura—the part that's been wondering if anybody ever needed her at all.

"You stupid, stupid girl," Tsunade says. "You ever pull that shit again, and I swear, I'll kill you."

Sakura cries dry, her scrawny arms stiffly winding themselves around Tsunade. "I'm s-sorry," she says again. She'll never be able to say it enough.

Tsunade holds her tight, but not long. She pulls away, exhales with a deep flare of her nostrils. She palms her head before she shakes it from side to side, in a sloppy manner that spoke to her slight inebriation. "Ugh, I'm too drunk for this conversation," she admits. "I'll let you kids talk and notify the Hokage." She wipes her eyes, and gives a mock-glare at Sakura, before pushing a prudent finger into Sakura's breastbone. "We're not done though, you got that?"

Sakura is still crying, but she feels her lips pull back into a disjointed smile, before she gasps an almost-chuckle. She wipes at her own cheek then, nodding.

When Tsunade walks out, Naruto doesn't wait a breath before he yanks Sakura against him. It's sudden and Sakura feels her head toss and roll, like it was barely corded to her neck, before it _thunks_ against his shoulder.

"Sakura-chan," Naruto says, and his voice is close, a wet vibration resonating through her ear. "I'm so fucking glad you're okay."

Sakura incrementally lifts her head, just enough to meet the deep blue sky of Naruto's damp eyes. She regrets that look on his face—the bitter set of his jaw, like he's trying hard not to frown even as he cries. She's seen it more than she's ever wanted these past few months.

Her fingers come to grasp at that tan, whiskered cheek, and Sakura leans up to graze her lips against the other. The kiss is strained and barely there, and then his cheek is wet with her tears as well as his.

"I'm sorry I made you worry," Sakura says, and she hopes he knows she's being sincere. Naruto will always be her boy.

"Sakura," Sai says. It's not overtly mechanical, or practiced. It's just tired, and very, very sad. Sakura turns to him, and Naruto lets her go with a tentative shake.

"I think…I think I know why you did what you did," Sai says, not looking anywhere in particular. "But please…don't do it again."

Sakura sees the fracture lying between them. It's painfully large and terrifyingly deep, with cool blue eyes, pale blond hair, and a very big, beautiful mouth.

She thinks Sai must hate her for this. To have to endure two heartbreaks in such a small amount of time. She sees the grief in the slump of his shoulders, the creases along his fisted hands.

"Gods," Sakura says. "I'm sorry."

"We're sorry," Hinata says, approaching the bed with dainty steps. Her pretty pearl eyes are rimmed with pinks and underlined with purples. Sakura remembers Hinata in her own hospital bed, how she looks barely better than when she was balling her eyes out over the death of her child.

"We knew you were hurting, and..." Hinata rubs her arm, sets her gaze somewhere along the floor. "We should have done more for you. We should have made sure you knew you were loved."

Sakura sinks into the stiff mattress, watches Naruto curl a bandaged arm around his wife, kisses the top of her head in steadfast affection. _Love has nothing to do with it._ Sakura thinks.

She sees her tousan in that moment, who often kissed her grieving kaasan the same way. She sees him in all his valor, his wild hair and incandescent spirit. Sakura was just an innocent girl with an innocent crush those days. She remembers him teasing, _You never know. He could be someone very special. I met your kaasan around your age, and even then,_ His eyes were star-speckled, arm tight around kaasan's middle to hold her secure. _I knew._

Sakura remembers the blank look in kaasan's eyes, despite all his ardor. Love has nothing to do with it.

And yet, it has everything to do with it.

Sakura turns on her side, not interested in remembering anymore. She finds Sai's fingers, pale and stiffly wrapped in the sheets by her beside. She winds her fingers through his, stares at the twitch of his white wrist.

"How is Ino?" It's stupid of her to ask. If the news is bad, she knows she won't be able to handle it. But it's been on her mind since she opened her eyes and she needs to know.

Sakura feels Sai tense against her palm, and she tries to squeeze his hand in consolation, but it comes out bare and weak. "The Godaime wouldn't let me visit," Sai says, sounding displeased.

"Baa-chan asked me to give Ino some of my chakra," Naruto says. "I couldn't give much because it would shock her system or something like that, but Baa-chan said it was enough to make sure she recovers. They don't know when though."

"Oh," Sakura says, and closes her eyes. For a short pause, she can hear her wilted heart beating in her chest, and she pretends it's Ino's instead. "That's good. I'm glad."

For a soft, peaceful moment, there's nothing but the ventilators droning on and the occasional cry of the gales beyond the window. Then there's the heavy creak of the door, and she hears Tsunade drunkenly call, "Alright kids, beat it! The Hokage wants a word alone with her."

She opens her eyes to see Kakashi pacing in. Naruto, Hinata, and Sai give her disheartened goodbyes before leaving. Then Kakashi's by her bedside.

He stares at her like he hasn't seen her in years. "I'm sorry," he says.

Sakura doesn't really know what he's referring to, but she doesn't want to find out either. So she opts for a simple nod.

"Me too."

She makes a motion with her hand, two soft pats by her head. She meets Kakashi's eyes and he looks hesitant at first, but then the bed sinks with his weight.

He sighs. "I really messed up with you guys, didn't I?" His pale hair falls in front of his face, and Sakura thinks it looks a little less grey and a little more white.

"You did okay, sensei. The best you could," Sakura says, and she feels him card his fingers through her hair. She offers him a tired smile. "We're trying, remember?" His hand pauses, and Sakura thinks he smiles at that, but the movement beneath his mask comes and goes so fast she can't be sure.

Kakashi lean over her then, and for a moment, she sees his fingers dip before his face, pulling stretchy fabric along. Suddenly, she sees his bare chin: pale-grey skin, deprived of sun, with little white whisks of facial hair. He moves closer, until his chin is nearly pressing against her right eye. She blinks it closed and he kisses the top of her head.

Then Kakashi pulls his mask back up, and sits upright. Sakura doesn't manage to get a decent look at his face, but she feels privileged enough for the glimpse anyway.

"You're a good kid, Sakura," he says, "I don't know if that's worth much in this world, but you are."

"You think?" She asks, fingers curling into dampened, rough sheets.

"I know."

Sakura closes her eyes, swallows, then _breathes_. She exhales deep, in the very same way she remembers doing after the war. Or maybe just before it.

"Thank you, sensei."

Kakashi waits several beats, then tilts his head to the side. "I should get the Godaime before she gets plastered," he says, as if she isn't already. "We still have to seal your chakra."

She feels his eyes on her, wearing a look of calm anticipation, as if she's going to whip out a chakra scalpel and cut open her throat right now.

Sakura thinks she would want to, considering what's to come. But she can't really fathom having that kind of energy. She's still stuck in a burnout after years of hysteria.

Besides, she needs to see Ino first. Ino just needs to be okay, everything else can come after.

"Don't worry, sensei," Sakura says. "I'm a medic. I know standard procedure."

Kakashi's chin tilts until he's staring forward. "Knowing it and liking it are two different things." And that's true enough, so Sakura doesn't say anything.

They sit in quiet until Tsunade shuffles in with a practiced sort of coordination. Her cheeks should be pink, but she's so pale in the face that they are only peach.

"You two'r taking too long," she says.

Kakashi stands, then turns towards Sakura. "Are you ready?" He asks, offering her his hand.

"Yeah," she says, despite the fatigue. She clasps his hand tight.

They walk her to a room that Sakura has been in more times than she can count, though never like this. It's white and empty, with nothing but a small counter to hold a bucket of extracted Senju blood, paint brushes, and kunai. The tiles feel like ice beneath her heel.

"Are you sure you can perform it?" Kakashi asks, his eyes directed on the Godaime. "I know you had a long day."

"What else is the Yin Seal for?" Tsunade asks, before her eyes find Sakura, and plaster themselves to her forehead. She just sighs, sounding utterly exhausted. "Right. I'll do the first," she tells Kakashi. "You can do the second."

Sakura pulls off the stiff gown, and places it neatly in the corner of the room. She tries to pretend like she doesn't see Kakashi flinch when he sees her bare body, and tries even harder not to wonder why. Sakura just sits down in the center of the room and drinks from a water bottle Tsunade had handed her. The liquid is as cold as the room and it takes everything in her not to make a show of shivering.

Kakashi helps set up the concentric circle of kunai and Tsunade walks over to her. She gasps when bare, frigid fingers meet her back. The blood is slick and cool, and it sticks to her skin like it's been churned with adhesive. Sakura tries to steady her jaw, much like how she imagines Tsunade is trying to steady her hand.

Sakura tries to distract herself. She doesn't want to think about the puppet-like motions and medicated eyes of the nin in the psych ward, or how she'll soon be joining them. She focuses on the sheen blade of a single kunai, just a few feet in front of her.

"The Hokage isn't usually present for chakra seals," she says.

"No," Kakashi says simply, "They usually are not."

"Why now?" Sakura asks.

"Because you're my student, of course," Kakashi says, and gives her a pleasant, nearly humored smile and crinkle of his eye.

Tsunade scoffs. "There's not enough medics that can perform high level fūinjutsu like this, if I pass out," she explains. "An' don't take it personally if Shizune doesn't visit; she's running the building right now, though it's supposed to be her day off."

"Speaking of which," Tsunade begins. "She told me Uchiha still hasn't woken up yet."

Sakura surprises herself; she doesn't even flinch at the mention of him. But maybe that's because she's already shivering.

"an' sensors keep saying crap about his chakra. Shizune is worried," Tsunade adds.

"What kind of crap?" Kakashi asks.

"They said it's…What was the words she used?...disturbing." Tsunade pauses, then adds, "Dark."

"I wouldn't worry. It's to be expected," Kakashi says, "Considering what he just saw."

"He shouldn't," Sakura spat, curling until her left knee meets her chin. She doesn't like that Sasuke carried her here. There's no logic to it. He hates the hospital. She told him she loved him and he left her on a fucking bench.

"Touschy," Tsunade slurrs. "You're still avoiding him? Then what was he doing in your apartment?"

And Sakura's falters because what **was** he doing in her apartment?

"Well, h e was on the mission with Ino. He was probably just concerned," Kakashi says, as if that explains anything at all. "Anyway," He says, unsubtly changing the subject, "will the two symbols seal work?"

Tsunade scoffs. "Don't mock my apprentice."

"I figured as much." Kakashi sighs, before walking over until she sees his knees touching hers. He pushes her hair back, then presses a bloody pointer finger to her forehead. His blood is warmer but still unpleasantly wet and Sakura has to hold in her little quivers.

He writes the kanji delicately at first, trailing down her nose, over her lip and chin. Once he meets her knee he starts making broader, haphazard strokes. By the time he reaches the floor, Tsunade is making another line of kanji across her body.

Sakura tries to count the kunai in front of her, then the tiles on the floor, stares at her toes and fingers and wiggles them in tandem. _They're going to make me talk to a psychologist._

She'll have to lie her way through an entire week. Maybe even more, if they deem her unstable. Sakura doesn't even want to think about that.

She eyes the white pleated door, and the square, narrow window. She considers running for it—bolting out of here and Konoha too. She would be a nukenin until they give up the search, then she could settle in the far border of Ame. She knows it's easier to grow crops around that sector and lead a self-sustaining life, thanks to the weather. Naruto would understand. Maybe Ino would too.

But then she discards the plot. Tsunade might be too tired to catch her, but Kakashi isn't. And her body is still in bad shape.

When they finish, Kakashi says, "I think we should just do it at the same time. Get it over with."

There's a lingering pause after that, where Sakura frowns, before Tsunade speaks, "Are you _trying_ to kill her? Do you have any idea how painful it is to have a seal placed on you?"

"It's been awhile," Kakashi says with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. "My apologies." Tsunade grunts.

"You ready, kid?"

Sakura exhales, reconsiders and rejects dashing out, then nods. "Yeah," she says. Kakashi gently weaves his fingers through hers and squeezes comfortingly.

First she feels Tsunade's warm hand on her back. It's soft, smooth. And then it's not.

There's scorching, white-hot pain, inflamed through her spine, spreading from the tissue around her eye sockets to the bones in her foot.

Sakura doesn't scream, just bites her lip and clamps Kakashi's hands with her own. She tries to regulate her breathing through it, but it's hard to tell if she's doing it properly when her insides feels like they're rupturing.

She thinks a year must have come and gone before the agony suddenly stops. She's panting, and the world has changed from concrete planes to an eerie nebulous. Her senses are confused, like they've been doused in novacaine.

 _What is this?_ Sakura thinks. This container feels strange, a mere whisper of the one before. It's terribly disconnected. _This isn't my body._

"Sakura?"

She looks up, meeting Kakashi's eyes and there's a faint, sticky sensation in the movement. She realizes she's sweating. "Huh?"

"Are you ready?" he asks.

"Oh, uh," she begins. She's not. She hates this. "Actually, um," Where is her chakra? **Where is her chakra?**

"The Yin—" Tsunade starts.

"Nevermind." Kakashi smacks his palm over her forehead.

She does scream this time, and she thinks Tsunade tries to hold her hand through it but it doesn't help at all. It's infinitely worse the second time, and when Kakashi finally pulls away, Sakura collapses, pain still rinking around her ears.

"Phew!" Kakashi falls backwards on his rear and rests an arm on his knee while he catches his breath. "Y'know, I really don't remember it being that bad."

Tsunade laughs, a bit breathy and disoriented. "You should've seen some of the other patients. I got ANBU crying like newborns."

She turns her head then, squeezes Sakura's hand, still clasped in her own. "You still there, kiddo?"

Sakura exhales out a deep breath. "Y-yeah," she says, then adds, "I think," because really, she's not so sure she is.

"C'mon, let's get you in a shower before we both pass out," Tsunade says. "You still smell like barf."

* * *

It's a hard adjustment, standing on legs that don't quite feel like hers. Everything is strangely simplified without chakra, as if someone imitated the world's surfaces but left the interior hollow. She's feels as if she's standing in the shower stall of a cheap dollhouse, inside an equally cheap, plastic body. Sakura prays it's just the fatigue.

 _How can we do this to people?_ She thinks. _This is a nightmare ._ No wonder her okaasan went mad, leading a life like this.

Tsunade helps Sakura wash up rather delicately, despite looking like she might double over any moment. She shampoos her hair, and lets Sakura brush and gargle out the awful, distinct taste of pill in her mouth.

When Sakura steps out of the shower, Tsunade guiding her steps, she's caught by a strange figure before them, sitting inside that big rectangle above the sink. The image hits so sudden that she yelps, stumbling backwards.

It's a skeleton. A walking, pale-peach skeleton. _Bones._

"What is it?" Tsunade asks.

She's confused by Tsunade's lack of reaction, and she takes an uncertain step forward again to investigate. The skeleton takes one towards her too.

It has hollowed cheeks and delirious green eyes—the only color—standing lucid inside the paper complexion. "Oh my gods," she whispers. Sakura sees ribs, so many ribs—she could count every one, if she wants. Drab and wet, pink hair framing concave cheeks.

 _Is that me?_

"Sakura," Tsunade says, sounding distressed and deeply concerned. "C'mon, you need rest."

Sakura makes a sound, and the cretin in the mirror looks as terrified as she feels. She sees the popping collar bones curve in, and fat droplets fall down those ugly, swollen eyes. She cups a hand over her mouth, "I'm bones," Sakura whimpers, "I'm **bones**."

Tsunade takes her hand, ungently pulls Sakura to her wonderfully warm breast, like she wants nothing more than to rip Sakura away from that mirror. She doesn't say anything, but her hand winds tight against the discs of her apprentice's spine, and the paleness of her coral hair. Sakura's throat is too dry for her to be crying like this, but she does anyway.

When they return to Sakura's hospital bed, Tsunade sits on the floor against her beside. "She isn't you, Sakura," Tsunade says, sounding resolute and gentle and utterly drained. "She isn't. Not right now, at least. But we're going to fix that."

Sakura nods once, feeling too exhausted and strange to do much else. She stares forward at the snow gathered by the edge of the windowsill. All white, and clean.

She falls asleep to the sound of Tsunade's breathing.

* * *

 **A/N:** Just wanted to take the time out to seriously thank everyone who's been commenting. It really helps more than I can explain with the writing process. Like I'm not going to lie and say that I write this stuff for anyone but myself, but the encouragement really means a lot, and gives me the faith I need in my abilities to push through things like writer's block. And I just really fucking appreciate it 3 Thank you all!

Also I'm stupid excited about the next chapter. It's one of my favs written so far. And uh...just want to warn you that we maaaayyy be running low on the drafts...oops.


	17. Fractals

Sakura feels an explosion.

She isn't really sure why. It's internal and eerie—something caught in a dream and struggling to break out. She sees Madara's eyes, red and black swimming inside a looping flipbook. _Blackness. Sharingan. Mangekyō. Eternal Mangekyō. Rinnegan. Death. Grief. Anger. War. Madness._

Then Sakura _hears_ an explosion.

She jerks up, just a moment after Tsunade, who is knocking a glass bottle as she rises. She bolts out, shoes going _clack clack clack_ against the tiles. The Godaime leaves Sakura with a single demand, "Stay here!"

She doesn't.

The moment the door shuts, Sakura is ripping out the needle of an IV that she doesn't remember Tsunade administering. There's little drizzles of blood, so soft and quiet and nearly erased inside the sting.

Sakura struggles to get up, trudging forward wondering how it was ever possible for her knees to support such a heavy body. She has to slug her way to the door, using stiff furniture and cold walls to lean on. She feels terrible. Her legs are inflamed by a weary sort of pain, like they may just collapse in a heap of ash. It reminds her of her parents sitting in their urns.

Sakura doesn't bother to acknowledge that her chakra is gone, or that her body has been deprived of basic necessities for so long that it's only through heaven's blessing that she's even still standing. She's useless again but _fuck_ if she doesn't still beg to try. And Sakura hates the nightmares but they never stop. Tsunade's going to be next if she doesn't make it there on time.

Sakura follows the sound of panicked medics pretending to be calm. They're telling patients to stay put and demand nobody leave their room. Still, she keeps going, hearing _Boom Boom Boom_ in her head. A medic yells at her, tells her she needs to go back to bed, but Sakura shuts an elevator door before she can hear much else.

She braces her weight on the wall when a fit of vertigo makes her head reel. Her body feels hot, burning everywhere, but still shivering like there's ice coating her neck instead of sweat. _Nerves._ She tells herself. _You're fine, it's just the nerves._

The elevator chimes and Sakura pushes herself forward. She has nothing to throw up but desperately needs to anyway. _Do it later,_ she decides.

When she rounds the corner of a hall, she screams.

" **Naruto!** "

He's kneeling in a puddle of blood, his right arm severed in a way that suggests it's been unnaturally torn. He's panting, trying to push Tsunade back, who's expression is vicious and frightened and too convoluted for Sakura to decipher. She rushes towards them.

When Tsunade sees Sakura, she bellows so loud her voice cracks, "GET **OUT**!"

"Senju _scum_."

A giant, indigo hand shoots through an already demolished doorway and snatches Tsunade tight, like it's going to squish her like a ripe fruit in a juicer. Any moment now, Sakura's going to watch her shishou's organs spill out like little pomegranate seeds.

Sakura is trying to run except her legs aren't really moving as fast as she needs them to. She's slow, just like in her dreams.

"Where did you take her!?"

"Sasuke!"

Naruto rushes forward with a palm full of beaming, gale-like chakra, but then a second Susanoo hand flicks him through a wall like an irritable fly.

Naruto's right arm is still lying on the floor. The hand around Tsunade is still squeezing. Sakura screams.

"Lethergo, **LETHERGO!** "

It happens so fast, she can't quite keep up with the motions. He's there, then he's not. She's there, then she's not. In an instant, her body is roughly shoved against a wide chest—a wet one, with splotches of red soaking through a stiff hospital gown. Her eyes train on the center of where his clavicle meets his throat. There's a little smudge of red that fans out like an uchiwa against the white of his skin.

"Her chakra!" Sasuke cries, "What did you do to her?"

Kakashi is there, inside this hospital room with them. His hand is veined, knuckles white, latched firmly onto Shizune, who's breaths are coming in fast and short, like something is choking her. Her arms are wrapped around her torso too. They're both holding on so tight, Sakura thinks her intestines must be threatening to worm between the cracks, much like the way her blood is.

There's a body on the floor too, one with hair that's long black silk, and for a moment, Sakura thinks _Orochimaru_. But then she notices the medic uniform and the hole in their chest. She smells gore and fumes, like the flesh was cooked before it bled out. Sakura has no idea how she managed to sleep through the bird cries.

"Sasuke, you left her here with us, remember?" Kakashi says, "to make sure she's-"

"You were supposed to keep her **safe**!" Sasuke says, a half sob, and Sakura can feel the strain of her gown tightening near her back, the wet brush of his knuckles coiling against her spine. "Puloman has been dragging her to his tomb!"

"Sasuke, she's fine. You're both okay," Kakashi says, he looks like he wants to move closer, but Shizune is in shock and might die without him holding her guts in. "Sakura just had a rough patch, but she's okay now."

"Sasuke!" That's Naruto's voice. _Naruto—his arm._ "Sasuke, let her go!"

"The Uchiha are dead because of you!" Sasuke shouts. "You take everything from me, you take **everything!** "

He's holding her very, very tight. She recognizes the disjointed motions of being rocked back and forth. Tousan used to do that, although he wasn't usually so shaky himself. Sakura thinks maybe she should be doing something, but she forgot how to move. All she hears is his heart pounding against her ear, and all she sees is red and white and a giant, inferno rib cage.

"We promise we're going to take good care of everything, Sasuke," Kakashi says. "But we need you to calm down and let her go first."

"You'll lock her in **white** ," he growls. And they will, but isn't that better than the red?

Sasuke's chakra is erratic, gods, it's scorching them. The only contrast is the cool, wet plops dripping from his jaw to her cheek, but it's far from relieving. She thinks they might be in hell. She thinks he'll drag everyone there, and maybe they deserve it.

There's a tentative footstep behind her and Sasuke's anguish unfurls. "Stay away from us, Asura! Stay away from my tsuma!" Sakura hears Tsunade cry for Shizune and her voice sounds like it's been bludgeoned.

"Sasuke, c'mon, we're Team 7, remember?" Naruto's words have a dampness to them. "We just haven't been ourselves, but it's us. We're gonna help each other. Sakura-chan especially." There's a twitch of Sasuke's arm against her. "She just needs us–"

"She needs **me!** " Sasuke shouts, and she's being pulled closer to his neck, the ridge of her nose pressed against the cut of his adam's apple. All she feels is his manic chakra, and she's trying to find her own in it but she doesn't know where she is. She doesn't know _who_ she is. She's felt it all before but not in this body and everything is **red red red** —

There's shouting. Sasuke is shouting. About the treaty. About the massacre. About the crowning. Tsunade and Kakashi shout then too and now Sasuke is screaming. Sakura doesn't know why he's holding her in this death grip, why his fingers feel like slivers of bone plunging through her skin. She says something, she's not sure what, but it flips Sasuke from volatile and deadly to something she doesn't think she's _ever_ seen before.

He's curling into her tight, lips pressed to her ear. "Shh…" he whispers, his breath hot and so close it makes her dizzy. "Shhh…" he coos again, slides a thumb along her wet cheeks, then cards his red fingers through her washed out tresses. "I'm here," he tells her, voice batty. "It's okay. I got you now."

This scares her—terrifies her. She's pulling away, and when she sees his face, she regrets it. The Rinnegan is spinning, wide circles ringing around his blown pupil and inside her ears. His Sharingan is all red, and so is his cheek—a vibrant war paint trailing down paper pale skin. _Madness._

The world is melting, pooling into blues and greens around them, and her head feels like it's being violently torn from the spool of _here_ and _now_ that she has so delicately been trying to ravel herself around. She thinks he might be using genjutsu again, but it's hard to tell without her chakra.

 _No._ she thinks. Not genjutsu. A nightmare. A bad dream turned lucid. That's why she's slow and disoriented. Naruto lost his right arm. The nightmares start that way, often. She thinks that if she sees Kakashi again, he'll be nothing but a singed corpse, ravaged by Amaterasu.

Sasuke is setting her down. She's not sure what's happening or where she is, but she's not in the hospital anymore. The sky above them is cloudless, and the grass below is brilliantly alive. _But it's winter._ Sasuke's hold is firm and steady.

He's wrapping her in himself in the very same way she used to do to her favorite doll before going to bed. "It's me," he says, running his pale fingers over her cheek, down her throat. It's the same path that a stranger had traced when he took her from herself. She remembers seeing his Mangekyō then, too.

"It's me, Sakura. It's me." He's breathing hard, and strangely, every exhale slipping past his cracked lips like a sweet relief. Susanoo is gone, but his chakra is still caging her. "It's okay," Sasuke says. "I got you. You're okay now."

"Sasuke, where am I?" she thinks she says, even though she can't really hear her voice. If Sakura had a kunai right now, she would dig it through his right eye socket. She knows Konoha would have her head for it. Sasuke's eyes are the most valuable weapon in their arsenal, besides the kyuubi. But Sakura doesn't care. His bloody star is so big and wide and spiraling rapid. It's all she sees. It's just her and Sasuke's bloody revolutions.

"You're with me," he says, ominously. There's a light pressure and he might be kissing her head, but she can't feel anything but his chakra. She shouldn't even be able to when she's disconnected from her own. But it's potent and so violently needy, she's sure the entire world must feel it.

"I want to go back," Sakura says. "Take me back, I want to g—"

 _"No,"_ Sasuke says, nearly whining. She sees the sharp edge of his jaw quiver, the slant of his nose pressing deep in her hair. "No," he repeats more firmly. Sasuke's arm ropes around her, long fingers clasping her close. "They'll take you away."

"I want to go back!" Sakura shrieks.

"Sshhh…" Sasuke whispers and his hand comes to cradle her face with an eerie gentleness. His lips press against her wet eye. "It's okay," his voice croaks. "You're okay now," he says, and a ragged breath brushes along her face. "You were right, Izuna. I…I _promise_ ," his voice cracks high and Sakura's skin crawls. She realizes then that he is crying. "I won't **ever** let them hurt you again."

She doesn't know what it is, maybe his tears or the raw conviction in his voice, but her throat is suddenly closing up.

"I'm not Izuna," she whispers. Then she heaves, fat beads of moisture obscuring the world around her. Her palms press as roughly as they can against his breast. He's everywhere, and she needs to get away from that terrible, ubiquitous chakra. It's messing with her head. "I'm not Izuna, I'm not—"

"No," Sasuke chokes, "No, you can't leave. You can't." He whimpers, pushes his forehead against her neck, and she can feel his throat bobbing just above her pounding heart. "Please. Let's just take Yamanaka and go. Please," he says. "We can come back for Naruto later."

Sakura is shaking her head. She's shaking all over but she's purposefully shaking her head. She has no idea where she is and Sasuke isn't a genin anymore and he's going to kill her. She knows she only has seconds. The nightmares don't last long.

Sasuke pets her head, a bit like how she used to do to the lab rats before sticking a syringe inside them. "Sakura," he says, fingers gliding in a motion that is fluid and mechanical in one. His neck bows into the hollow of her gaunt cheek, a white and black marionette with asymmetrical eyes. Any moment now, his hand is going to light up, fry her face right off with white lightning.

"Sakura, please," he murmurs against her skin. His hand moves to her waist. His palm is wide and hot and wet; his fingers crawl like spider legs, folding into the crevices of her ribs. They mold small circles against her in a manner much too gentle to suit the blood staining them.

It's soothing, in an obscure and disconnected sort of way. And when his fingers press against a particularly tense, tight muscle, Sakura whimpers in lieu of a sob from the sheer relief. He's willing something occult from her body and Sakura feels scared. His hand is sensual, ceremonial. But it doesn't make sense for a God to pray.

She doesn't know what he wants—what he's trying to coax out—but it doesn't matter anyway. Nightmares all end the same. Sakura closes her eyes and waits.

Sasuke's voice comes, whispering softly. He says he'll fix everything up, that he's killed tyranny before and he'll do it again. Tobirama can fucking rot. And Konoha will pay for what they did. The Sandaime will be on his knees, begging for mercy for mutilating their children. _But he's already dead._

"I'll take you away from there," Sasuke says, sighs sweetly against her hair, like he's found profound respite somewhere between her wet cheek and his deranged convictions. "You'll be safe."

Sakura is shaking and her eyelids sting like they've been traced with a senbon burned for branding. Sasuke sounds delirious, a bit like when he tried to shove a hand through her head in the Land of Iron. Sasuke-kun isn't a genin anymore.

Sakura tries to say something—anything—to anchor them, but can't find a single string of coherent words. All she feels is his grieving chakra, and all she sees is the red spin of his star.

When he pulls her closer she feels his hot, stiff need press on the inside of her thigh. Sakura tries to scream but it never makes it out because Sasuke kills that too when he brushes his lips against her lobe with a surprised groan. _"Oh."_

He grips her hip. "Sakura," he whispers, voice raspy with a different kind of haze. His nose tucks into her throat again, nuzzling. "Fuck, I've missed you so much," his whisper is soft, and binded in a pain she knows she felt before but can't remember right now.

Sasuke shifts lower, then higher, hips moving just enough for him to glide up her thigh, until he's nudging her center beneath the gown and her gasp splits the air. There's as much moisture as friction, and she realizes that it might be coming from her. Sasuke's mumbling something, dry lips dragging across her skin. "Can we…?"

Sakura's stomach wiggles and knots in on itself like a pit of tapeworms and larva. She's been here before. And Ino's not here to save her this time. She steals a buried breath, and asks,

"Are you going to rape me?"

.

Everything stops.

Even his chakra goes still. For a moment, Sakura thinks the world may have slanted on its axis–that time itself gave pause. The divine is giving her a rare moment of rescue, a second chance where she can get up and **_run_**.

But then he shatters the hope with the coiling of his head. There's something warm and wet, pooling in the juncture where her throat meets her bony clavicle. Sasuke's lashes are thick, wet webs, brushing closed along her skin.

She wonders who he is crying for. The other nin didn't weep when he sought relief from his dead love, but Sakura knows that Sasuke-kun is different too. He's just sad like that, sometimes. The first time she found him lining his wrists, it was in moonlight, and he told her to mind her own business. The second time she found him, he told her he needed the release. Both times he was crying.

"Please don't," Sakura says, because she can't think of anything else to say. She runs shaky fingers through his dark hair, like tousan used to do to her after a terrible, terrible nightmare. Maybe she can wake them up like this too.

Because she doesn't think she can bear it if Sasuke spreads her open. It happened before by a stranger and she was never the same after. She wants it to end. She just wants everything to end. "Please don't. Just kill me. You can do anything you want after that, okay?" Sakura bargains. "Anything. I promise."

He shakes his head, it's a subtle shift, but Sakura sees it and she feels the terror spasming through her. "I-I know. It's hard. I feel lonely sometimes, too." She's trying to keep the tears out of her voice and she's failing miserably. "But you can do it after, if you want to. It'll still be warm, if you really think about it. It'll feel good." She's rambling—a terrible habit she always had around him when they were little. It was the nerves then. Now, it's the panic.

She hears him heave: a horrible, croaking noise that didn't want to leave his throat. His fingers sink hard into her waist. Her own hands are frantic then, combing through his wild, matted hair with new urgency. Sakura can't bear to have Sasuke upset. He always hurts her when he's upset and she just can't bear it anymore.

"Please, Sasuke-kun," she says. "Please, let's just do it after. I want to sleep first."

He pulls away violently, as if he'd been smacked across his gaunt cheek, and it's the complete antithesis of what she was hoping for. Her arms shoot out, reaching for his white, tear-stricken face. She wants to cry, plead, beg. But then he's too far.

Sasuke's eyes leak like cracks in a home that couldn't quite manage to keep out the rain. His lips shake rough, like the door before it snaps off its hinges, burying beneath the flood. His tomoe have stopped spinning.

It's an alien sight, seeing the proud hawk become fledging. And there's so much grief on his face, she thinks it could wash away the blood if he smears it at the right angle. She is nearly overcome with the urge to do it for him. She's never seen him cry like this before, but Sakura thinks she might hate it.

Her breath is heavy and jerky, little hiccups and gasps leaving her. Sasuke just keeps staring. He doesn't try to calm her down this time. He just stares and stares until she's not sure if he's even seeing her anymore. Sakura doesn't like it. That look on his face is going to put her under. She's shaking bad, pulling her thighs closer to her.

When Sakura closes her eyes, she feels him shift over her again, then the warmth of his breath against her forehead. He exhales deep. His lips, wet with his distress, close over her seal. They trail down the side of her face, to her lobe, and he says, voice rugged and sternly sober,

"I'm sorry."

There's a rush pushing through her, and Sakura doesn't see anything but his downcast eyes, and the way he tries to rub the shame off his face as he pulls away. Then they're back in a hospital room, and Sasuke is moving away from her entirely.

She's startled from the lack of contact, calls out for him, reaching. The dread hasn't left and she thinks he's going to kill himself but she'd rather it be her than him.

"Sasuke-kun," Sakura says, "Sasuke-kun, wait!" He's turned away and it's strange not to see the uchiwa sitting between his shoulder blades. And Sakura **hates** seeing his back.

She is climbing out of the bed, and she tries to grab his arm, but he's already leaping off the edge of the windowsill.

Sakura follows, slips on a bony heel and falls onto cold tiles. She can hear Kakashi calling for her, somewhere behind her pounding heart. She's clambers up the crevice Sasuke fled through thinking this is how she's going to lose him again. She's going to lose everything and it is all kaasan's fault. Mebuki wants Sakura to be alone, just like her.

The sky above is drooping grey. Sakura's lifts her heel onto the frosted windowsill.

A warm hand is placed on her shoulder and she's being pulled back in Kakashi's solid, but gentle hold. Naruto is a hot blur of solar flares slipping past her.

And of course Naruto is going after Sasuke instead. He's yet again left to bring back home the pieces. Sakura is always failing her boys.

"I'm no help," Sakura says, her face wet and cold from the winter breeze. "I'm never any help."

"It's okay, Sakura," Kakashi says. "It's okay, it's over. Let's get you back to bed."

"He's going to kill himself."

"He won't," Kakashi says, and she thinks he might be tugging at her. "He has Naruto."

But Naruto is missing his right arm and Sasuke is missing his left. "I need to go, I need to find—"

Kakashi cups her head and forces her gaze away from the window and into his eyes. They're grey and soft and very, very sad.

"Everything is going to be fine," Kakashi says. "We just need to calm down, okay?"

"But Ind—"

She stops herself, horrified. Then she sinks, Kakashi lowering to the ground with her before her knees hit the frozen tiles and she sobs.

It's only then that Tsunade speaks. "What the fuck was that?" She sounds hysterical, a vibrant cluster of horror breaking her voice. "Why the hell isn't that boy on medication!?"

Sakura can feel Kakashi's hand grip her tighter. "He is on medication," Kakashi says. "But he probably decreased the dose for the mission."

When Sakura steals a look over at her shishou, she sees Shizune, who's no longer holding her guts in. Instead, she's sitting pale-faced on the floor, staring at the dead medic nin with a look of barely restrained regret.

Sakura stares too, eyes fixing on the silk hair—long and black and beautiful. She moves a bit stiffly, crawling out of Kakashi's arms until her forehead presses against a cool, white wall. She vomits.

"Why didn't you report this to me, Kakashi?" Tsunade says, sounding outraged. "Who was administering this medication? Where was his assessment? What the hell were you thinking!?"

"The hospital sets him off; I was trying to avoid _this_ ," Kakashi says. "Naruto said he had it under control."

"Are you kidding me?" Tsunade asks. "Naruto is an idiot!"

"I trust his judgment when it comes to Sasuke. He was never wrong about him before."

"He was this time." Kakashi doesn't say anything and Tsunade sighs, some of the heat seeming to leave her.

Sakura can feel Shizune's hand rubbing between her shoulder blades. She tries to protest, Shizune probably lost too much blood and needs rest, but then she heaves again. She sees slimy yellow fluid making a _splat_ against the floor under her.

She can't get Sasuke's Sharingan out of her head. She remembers him once telling her she needs to quit worrying about him, that he wants Itachi's death more than his own anyway. But now Itachi is gone.

"The council will be livid," Tsunade says.

Kakashi keeps his eyes trained on the open window. "They will," he agrees.

"I'm not going to help you cover this up."

"I wouldn't ask you to."

Tsunade features twist in a way that suggests she's peeved, like she's angry that he isn't putting up more of a fight.

Sakura wipes a string of spit from her mouth, and waits for her throat to act like a throat again. She can still feel Sasuke's touch. Her gown is red now too, just like his.

"What are they going to do to him?" Sakura asks. "They can't hurt him—Naruto—Naruto will be upset." She will be too, but she doesn't say that.

Shizune squeezes her shoulder in what she assumes must be comfort while Kakashi walks over. "Don't worry about it," he says. His arm snakes around the back of her knees and her rigid spine, and he carries her to a vacant bed. "I'm the Hokage. I'll handle it."

"It's Sasuke," Sakura says, her voice a little breathy and very strange to her ears. "He has a criminal history. This could warrant execution."

Kakashi shakes his head. "Not while he's still an Uchiha—not while he has his eyes."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Tsunade snarls. "They could scoop out his eyes, extract his sperm and find a host and incubator with a snap of their fingers." Sakura's hands are wrinkling with the bedsheets.

"This **isn't** the same Konoha that your sensei lead," Kakashi finally snaps.

It's a low blow, but a calculated one that shuts Tsunade up fast. Her expression is steadfast, but Sakura knows her shishou well enough to see the torrent behind it. She desperately hopes Kakashi isn't lying.

"We'll talk about this later," Tsunade says. "I'll take care of this mess, go check on your other kids."

Kakashi leaves and Tsunade and Shizune mutter a brief exchange that Sakura forgets to pay attention to. Instead, she stares at the dead black haired medic nin on the floor and wonders why the body is still just laying there, looking too much like the snake sannin. She sinks her head onto a pillow that is still damp with sweat. It smells like sage and cinder and sadness. It smells like Sasuke.

* * *

When Sakura died in Sasuke's genjutsu, all she saw was white.

It had a blue hue at first, and she imagines it was because of the lightning. But then everything was just white and still. Like winter came and froze the moment of their farewell.

Sakura was uncertain about it all. Not that she was atheist—you couldn't be after seeing a rabbit goddess in the flesh just moments before like that. But she didn't know if the afterlife would be there for someone like her. And there was a strong part of her that sat in the moment and waited to become nothing at all.

She did, for the most part. No body, no thought. But there was still feeling.

And Sakura felt love.

She felt love and yearning and sadness. She felt Sasuke's hand holding onto her heart, even as it had dislodged the organ from her body.

Sakura had felt his fingers, white-hot with a frantic energy, mapping her beating organ inside his steady hold. She had felt his pulse too, nestled in that cosmic crescent in his left palm. At first, she expected him to squeeze her till she burst—something he always seemed to do. She was still, anticipating the pressure, the heat, the death. But it didn't come.

His fingers just wove around, like the newly blinded reach for something concrete amidst the darkness. There was a possessive quality to it, or maybe just a desperate one. It was hard to tell. And Sakura lost the words in the same way she lost thought.

Maybe he would just keep her heart as a souvenir. Like Orochimaru's snakes, or Itachi's eyes, or Madara's lunacy. Her heart pulsed steady, pumping wishes instead of blood and Sakura didn't fight.

 _Let him._ It had always belonged to him more than her anyway. The rest was just wishful thinking.

Sakura was okay with it, she found. There was an uncanny peace living inside the agony, a thick regret laying only in the valleys that mourn how she couldn't do more for him. Still, she was okay with not waking up.

She was okay with dying by his hand _—this hand—_ his left. She had tried her best and he did too, and it's all they could really do for themselves, for one another. Maybe she could see him tomorrow and they would say hi and start again somewhere new.

Sasuke's distraught pulse had begun to soften against Sakura's heart then, until they were synced and moving in tandem. Yes, she was okay with not waking up.

But then she did. It was like slivers of sunshine cording through and begging for them to come back home. _Not yet._

With his voice inside hers, his touch coating her heart, it came.

 _Kai_

.

.

.

* * *

 **A/N:** I know this chapter is very confusing, there's a lot going on and it may require a second read. I apologize for that, I really should have gotten a beta to look it over or something, but I just got really stoned and edited it myself instead lmfao

 ** _B I G_** shout out to Ceej, who actually drew art of this chapter! I can't link it here, but please check it out! It's ceejss on Twitter! There's also a load of awesome SS art *COUGH*andsmut*COUGH* on her Twitter too! She's a phenomenal artist.

As always, thank you so much for reading! Please send me your thoughts if you can!


	18. Synapse

**A/N:** Before I start this chapter, I want to preface it by stating that I'll be taking a plot development from Sakura Hiden. I still have to read both Sasuke Shinden and Sakura Hiden myself and see if I want to draw on more from them, but there's one piece of the story I already know about that I liked. I've been trying to steer my narrative towards it for a while now, but it's really going to come into play here. If you aren't familiar with Sakura Hiden, all you really need to know is that it involves children.

Also, shout out to my amazing, and wonderful friend for looking this chapter over for me! I was initially very nervous about a few aspects of the writing here, but she was very encouraging, and I owe her the world for supporting me through it ❤

* * *

Konoha's psychiatric unit measures to the exact degree of unpleasantness Sakura has estimated. The halls are narrow and bleak, despite the blinding florescent lights illuminating them. There's the smell of sterilization too, and while Sakura is acquainted enough for it to be nothing less than homely, it's blended with odors so putrid it can only be from bodies. Sweat, blood, shit—Sakura gets whiffs of it all.

The most blaring feature of the ward is the most obvious one. And Sakura can't help but hear Sasuke's voice in her head.

 _You'll lock her in white._

He was deranged and manic, but he was right.

A graveyard mix of glossy-eyed shinobi are trapped inside with her, most of which are there for obvious reasons: One scrawny, freckled woman tells Sakura she would look good cut up into bloody bits, and one man with swollen, white eyes refuses to eat.

"You really think I'd hand over the Hyuga's secrets so easily?" he asks, sneering at a medic who looks like she wishes she could levitate away and never come back. "I know it's drugged, you stupid fucks! I'm not swallowing a damn thing!" Push comes to shove, and the staff makes a show of violently force feeding him, so he retaliates by sticking his fingers down his throat.

"It's always wet and everywhere like that," A girl mumbles, "He does it with medication too."

When Sakura turns to get a better look, she sees a small thing with one hand in her hair and another in her mouth. She's bug eyed, skin sweaty and clammy, even though they might as well be standing in an ice box.

"Just..uhmmm… be careful. They don't let you wash if it gets on your feet."

Sakura soon finds that this girl is her roommate and named Aoi. She is a strange, timid girl—maybe a kid. She has short, dark hair and uncanny bald patches she tries to hide by combing her tresses over. She has the worst posture Sakura has ever seen too, and likes to keep her hands around her mouth. She's quick to make a habit of sticking to Sakura's side, and Sakura wishes she found it endearing instead of irritating.

Within hours, Sakura's come to learn an important facet of the psych ward is the screaming. It's a constant hell against her ear drums—far worse than anything she had to endure back when her parents were still alive.

"Ew! Ewewew! Gross! You're being gross again!"

"Why is it so small? They're never that small."

"Stop staring!"

"Why? I like it."

"Stop being GROSS!"

Sakura prays it's something that will eventually filter out into background noise, because the only alternative is that it will drive her into insanity.

(Correction: _Further_ into insanity. Because she has already landed herself here and that speaks for itself.)

If her peers aren't screaming, they're doing other bizarre things, like creating pissing contests of Who's the Most Fucked Up? They recount stories of cutting and burning, how creative they were about their self-mutilation through jutsus, back when they still had their chakra.

One patient boldly claims he's tried to kill himself six times. "They'll never let me out. I'm worse than all of you," he says it in a way that's mock upset and clandestinely proud.

Aoi bows her head in a thoughtful sort of shame. "Wow," she mumbles, hands pulling at her hair.

The only saving grace is a little girl with a blonde pixie cut, standing off to the side with her arms crossed and eyes rolling.

.

.

.

The first time they hand out pills, Sakura sees the way the medics tiredly instructs "Lift your tongue" to certain patients, but not others. So when she's handed hers, there's nothing Sakura can do but swallow and see what happens. She's disappointed to find that they check under hers too.

Sakura can tell she was probably given an SSRI and a benzodiazepine when her eyelids get heavy and the uneasy ripples in her stomach get exponentially worse. The numbness is setting in all over and Sakura knows she needs to sit down before she _falls_ down. Unfortunately, someone has wet the only empty lounge couch, so Sakura chooses a corner of cold floor instead.

The chemicals flood her porous brain and make every thought fleeting and incoherent. She's somewhat aware that her tongue is tingling, and that she really wants to sleep. Her body is so sluggish that she has the distant thought that she's not a person anymore. She is a puddle of thick, milky goo instead—a stain broadcasting a terrible mistake. _Like cum._

She's hazing through the thoughts, and suddenly Sakura remembers lonely nights with a pillow between her legs. She remembers wanting to make Sasuke-kun feel good, wanting to ride him hot and sweet till his mouth hangs open and he spreads himself thick inside her. Now she's pasty and smells funny, just like everything else here. Sasuke isn't there with her, but she hears his voice again.

 _You'll lock her in white_. Sasuke had said, and he was right. They've locked her up and now she'll never leave.

She hears the feet dragging and the echoes then. It's time to go eat dinner now and everyone is leaving but Sakura's legs twitch instead of move. The medics have to peel her off the floor and her roommate is crying next to her.

"She's dead! She's _dead!_ I knew it IknewitIknewit! They always die, they alw—"

"Shut up!" A medic shouts, "You either shut up, or you leave!"

They hold Sakura's mouth open and pour water. When that doesn't work, they decide to stick a needle inside of her. It works just enough for her to keep her heavy eyelids squinted. She's being dragged through endless white hallways, but glues her eyes onto the end of a poorly lit one. It's very curious and intriguing, with a man who has a red and white cat face standing at the end of it. Her roommate says something.

"Huh?" Sakura asks, tries to tilt her head in Aoi's direction, but it just sloppily falls against her shoulder.

"You said he's there," Aoi says. Sakura thinks she sees tear tracks on Aoi's cheeks, and can't help but think they're strangely puffy up and red. Is she sick?

"Who?" Sakura asks.

"I don't know," Aoi mumbles. " _You_ said it."

"Huh?" Sakura asks again. "Said what?"

All the dread that once came with seeing a clinician is forgotten. Her first meeting goes by very smooth. Sakura assumes, anyway, because she doesn't remember much.

"Did you say something?" Sakura asks. And she thinks the strange woman in the oversized sweater speaks, because her mouth is moving and there's a sound muffled in the air. "Can't hear. Louder, please," Sakura requests.

"I think we need to lower the dose of the medications."

"Uh?" Sakura mumbles. "No, don't do that. Ino needs them," she says, "Gotta save 'er."

.

.

.

Sakura figures this stay would be worse, if she didn't have the name and face of Tsunade's gifted protégé. She's certain that's what got her the green plastic band around her wrist that the others stare at. Most of them are wearing white or yellow ones, and sometimes lavender. The patients are often kind in an aloof sort of way until she catches them side-eye her wrist. Then they're hostile, careful—and maybe a bit curious, like they're wondering what she has that they don't.

Sakura doesn't blame them. She sees the way staff manhandles her peers, the way she has been given a lower dose of medication the very next day (so she can actually _think)—_ while medics don't bat a lash at the others lying face down in piss and drool.

The patients are reprimanded for everything, the kids especially, despite often being better behaved. The cruelty is not often explicit, but Sakura knows. It's the chastising looks, the echoes of tension just before she's walking in a room. Whatever malice these medics harbor is neatly bottled when directly in Sakura's presence.

Maybe Sakura should take this privilege with a sense of gratitude or grace. But she lashes out instead, furiously states that she's a medic too and that's not how you should treat your patients, that's not how you should treat _anyone._

The more coherent patients never really thank her for her rage. In fact, she usually finds them avoiding her after her outbursts. She tries not to be hurt by that because she knows they're probably just trying to save face.

One nurse with an orange bob cut later pulls her into an empty hall. He tells Sakura that she's on the wrong side. "What's with you? You shouldn't be defending _them_ **,** " he says. "You're one of us, after all. You shouldn't even be in here."

Sakura, at her wits end, exercises that aforementioned privilege and promptly says, "No offense, but fuck you." Then she storms out without her chaperone.

Eventually one of the boys, a quiet little thing that Sakura often catches staring at people's feet, turns to her amidst a board game. "You should quit doing that," he says, "it just makes it worse for us when you're not there to play watchdog with them," he glances at her wrist, " _Greeny_."

Sakura frowns, studies the disgruntled curve of his lips, and the blazing focus of his eyes on the floor. She looks to the others, and the ones who don't look drugged out of this dimension seem to hold a quiet solidarity with him.

Sakura feels an acute and disjointed indignation. She puts down the pieces of a board game and excuses herself to go to the restroom.

The nurse with the bob cut is the one to escort her. "Told you," he says.

* * *

The worst part of this situation will always be the absence of her chakra. It's the spirit and liveliness of her being, the tender magic inside of her. And it's been sealed away.

The void it leaves overlaps with the drugs she's being fed. Everything is blurring. She's aware of the way she's losing her train of thoughts, of her failure to find words or catch ideas she knows she has but can't quite trace out. Sakura feels dull and stupid, and so does the rest of the world.

And it's inescapable. There's far too much time with far too little distractions. Everyone is anxious with flighty hands and sprinting thoughts. Patients are having panic attacks in front of her and the only relief they are offered are medics recommending they read a book.

Sakura drawls through the hours, sweating and mumbling through habitual checklists of bones and organs, or shivering in this poorly insulated cage wondering if she is ever going to be **free**. She's not disobedient by nature, but she's not passive either, so when she's sitting, tucked into herself and head crawling away, she fights against the hopelessness.

 _You can do this,_ she instructs herself. _Just watch._

She notices everything she can, because intel is good. Intel can get her out.

She has to mentally verbalize the information several times for it to stick, but Sakura is nothing if not dedicated. She leaves post-it notes around her brain as she meanders through this white prison.

There's a camera to the right of her dormitory entrance, nestled in the corner of the ceiling. An inconspicuous mic fastened to the back of a couch. The supply closet two turns right and one turn left from check out.

The single ANBU—a red and white cat mask—standing at the end of that poorly lit hall.

Outside of that, Sakura waits. She opts out of board games with the others, but that makes Aoi follow her and Sakura sees the agitated looks from the medics. She knows it better to stay on their good side so she decides it's best if she participates in art therapy.

"Yours is so colorful, Haruno-san," Aoi says, hand in her hair.

Sakura hums in agreement, tired and covered in gooseflesh.

"What are you painting?" One of the younger girls asks. She's one Sakura only knows by face—the one with that rolled her eyes when their peers were counting cuts.

"Don't know," Sakura responds. It's partially true. The strokes of her brush are lazy but purposeful. She needs to make something that suggests _happy._ So Sakura paints a distant memory of what she remembers feeling when a doe-eyed, blonde haired girl handed her a red ribbon. She wonders if Ino is awake yet.

"Oh," the girl says, then looks down at her piece, an obvious attempt of a forest. It's sloppy, but Sakura thinks it has a certain charm to it.

"Noriko," Aoi calls, voice muffled with her fingers in her mouth. She gulps, then does it again, moves one hand and puts it back in her hair. "Can I …um..can I…borrow some of your green?" Aoi asks. "I want mine to be colorful like Haruno-san's too."

"Sure." The girl nods, pushes her palette towards Aoi. Noriko looks back at Sakura then and asks, "What's your favorite color?"

Sakura doesn't even need to think about it. "Red."

* * *

"Haruno-san," a bland looking woman in an even blander sweater greets. "Please, have a seat. Anywhere you'd like."

There's a lumpy looking couch, and an oversized bean bag chair. Sakura chooses the couch.

"Do you remember me?" The woman asks.

"No."

"I assumed," she hums. "I guess we really overdid it yesterday, huh?" The woman offers a smile that reminds Sakura of beady eyed dolls.

 _That's not convincing at all_. She wouldn't be very good in ANBU. But Sakura supposes that's why she's working here instead.

"My name is Doctor Sato, but you can call me Akari," she says, and cheerfully adds, "We're both doctors, after all."

 _You can do this,_ Sakura tells herself. _Just smile._ She offers a forceful stretch of her lips. "Pleased to meet you."

"Let's start light," Akari suggests. "How's your stay been? Are you getting along with other patients?"

Sakura thinks this may be a trick question, that if she says no it means she's being avoidant and if she says yes then she's guilty by association. So she stupidly answers with a dubious, "Yes?"

"You sound unsure," Akari says.

"Well, I just got here," Sakura quickly recovers. "My roommate seems nice, though."

"Ah," Akari nods. "Good. How have you been feeling?"

This one is easy. "Good."

"Any thoughts of suicide or self harm?"

"No."

"How about harming others?"

"No."

"Are you sure about that?" Akari asks, then gives her an inquisitive, judging look. "The nurses say you've been awfully hostile."

It's good Sakura knows how to play docile and quaint, because her blood is boiling. _Told you._ The orange headed bitch of a medic's voice echoes in her head.

"It's very important that you're honest with me, Haruno-san," Akari says, her smile glossy and practiced. "We want you to get better, don't we?"

Sakura nods her head, and gives her that sweet, hollow smile that she's sure she fakes better than this nark.

"Let's try again. Have you been having urges to harm others?"

"A short temper, at times," Sakura says. "But…I, well…I think it's just misplaced frustration, Akari-san. It's been a difficult adjustment."

"Difficult," Akari echoes. "Tell me, what about it is difficult?"

Sakura wonders if this woman tries to sound as cliché as she comes off. "Um…you know. Just…not having my friends around, I guess."

"Ah, so you miss your friends at home."

"Yes."

"Well, it can't hurt to make some friends here then, right?"

"No, it can't hurt."

"You don't sound convinced."

"I'll make friends," Sakura says, tries to square her shoulders with confidence. "I have a few people in mind, who I don't think it would hurt to know."

"Good," Akari says. "Tell me about these people."

 _Shit._ "The kids," Sakura says quickly, "A lot of the kids seem nice. Lot of spirit."

"Mm," Akari hums in thoughtful confirmation. "Yes, a bit of youth sounds like it would do you good." Sakura has no idea what that means, but it sounds like an insult.

Akari lays back in her chair, far more comfortable than anyone should be in this institution. "So, Sakura…do you think you could tell me why you tried to overdose?"

There's a flash of okaasan's face, and Ino's bloody body lying on a stretcher. "I just had a headache," Sakura says, sounding more offended than she means to.

Akari doesn't blink. She just leans over towards a bundle of papers on her desk, lifts one carefully to examine it closer. "Says here you had about 270 milligrams of Hydrocodone in your system." She places the paper down and gives Sakura a condescending smile. "That sounds like a bit more than necessary for a headache, don't you agree?"

Sakura tries to refrain from chewing her lip off. Yes, _fine,_ maybe she swallowed a few more pills than she expected. But if she tells this woman that it was because okaasan was watching her, she'll never escape this hell.

"Are you sure it was just a headache, Sakura?"

"Um…I…uh…well, I guess it was more than that."

"That sounds right," Akari says calmly. "But it looks like you're not ready to talk about that just yet." She leans back again. "So why don't you tell me more about these kids."

* * *

Sakura is escorted out the office, wondering when was the last time she felt so drained. _Oh. Right._ Probably when she woke up in the hospital. It's a mistake to remember it's been less than 48 hours since then.

She's sitting on the couch, eyes planted on the tiles of these offensively white walls. She fastidiously pretends like she doesn't see Aoi pulling at her hair in her peripheral when a medic comes and says, "Haruno-san, you have a visitor."

Sakura perks up immediately. "I do?"

"Yes."

Sakura gets up, follows her out through a series of halls until she's lead to a new room. It's white, of course, but the difference in floor texture seems significant. It's only when she's directed to a thick, windowed door that her body seizes immediately.

Right there, through the square glass, Sakura can see Naruto and Sai's profiles.

They're chatting away, entirely oblivious to her presence only a few feet and one locked door away. Sai is still pale, adorning his ink, and Naruto is still sunshine, dressed in star-fire. Sai's smile is soft, and a little damaged, but Naruto's is big and wide and **warm** and Sakura's feels tears pricking her eyes from it. She takes a step closer, ready to bolt through.

Then she catches her reflection in the glass and her smile breaks. She looks dirty and disheveled, on the verge of tears. Like someone from the loony bin. Like someone from _here._

With a horrible, anxious clarity, Sakura's reality cuts through her: She is in a psych ward. She tried to kill herself. She wanted to die.

She _still_ wants to die.

The turn of her heel is a split decision, but a final one.

"Nevermind," Sakura says. "I don't want any visitors today."

* * *

The colorless monotony continues for days. Sakura meant to keep count of how many, but between with the fatigue and the roars of her inmates, she's been losing herself, let alone her sense of time.

She hates the predictability of it all. The paper food, the paranoia, the pleading, _Gods, just go to sleep already Aoi so I can actually be alone with myself for **one** second_—only for her to spend it crying.

So when the morning comes when a nurse doesn't check under Sakura's tongue during medication distribution, her heart plunders past the heavens. It's a wrench thrown in the routine—one she plans on taking acute advantage of.

That next day, Sakura doesn't swallow pills. That next night, Sakura doesn't cry.

She does something worse: she sneaks out of her room.

Sakura knows every stealth technique in the book from her missions in ANBU, but she can't apply a handful without her chakra. She's grateful of her vast medical knowledge—knowing where to strike, and with what pressure, to incapacitate the medics. She takes the roundabout way to avoid cameras, and when she comes across one she simply needs to break, she ensures it's far from her dorm.

Sakura picks the lock of the utility closet with a medic's hairpins—a trick she taught herself back when kaasan used to get upset and lock her out of the house. She mixes bottles of cleaning supplies, drags the unconscious body of the medics and slips into one's clothes. She goes through every motion with an undercurrent of adrenaline and a perspicacious, calculating eye.

It's not until Sakura is rounding on that dimly lit hall with the ANBU that she notices she's shaking. She's not scared, she realizes. No, she's just… _excited._

The bottled explosive she made gets thrown first, lands partially on the ANBU's drawn blade, and against the wall behind him. It explodes bright and perfect—blasting his mask, his sword, and bits of his ear off. Then Sakura throws the sleeping gas.

The gas itself is stronger than she'd preferred, and it's very likely there will be brain damage. It's not something the old Sakura would do, but she's been cornered now. All that's left to cling to is scraps of self-worth. _There was nothing else I could do._ She tells herself.

His body slumps to the ground and Sakura counts to one-hundred and ninety-two. When no one else appears, she covers the lower half of her face and toes through the fumes. She takes his blade, a kunai and—after some searching—a set of keys.

In heart pounding moments, she's standing before an iron door. She takes a breath—a deep one. Then another. She slips the keys into the locks, one at a time until she hears the minute _click_ of the last and fourth one. She takes another breath. Then she opens the door.

He's there, sitting across from her in a straitjacket, a blindfold, and so many seals he could pose as a word search of kanji. The room is padded white.

"Sakura," Sasuke says, and his voice is tender, brimming with such soft intimacy. Did he always say her name like that? She wonders. It must be the adrenaline. "What are you doing here?"

And _of course_ Sasuke already knows it's her. Blinded and mummified in restraints and seals, he still knows it's her in this room with him. Just like she knew it was him down this hallway.

"Hi Sasuke," Sakura says, casually, as if she hadn't been avoiding him for the better half of a year. She steps in through the doorway, closes it behind her. She seats herself beside him in a way that suggests that their last encounter didn't intimately entail their sanity being hurled into oblivion.

"You shouldn't be here," Sasuke says, though he subtly shifts closer. It could be chalked up to a twitch of muscle and had she been anyone else, she would have assumed it as much. But Sakura knows Sasuke, and he is a man of intention, if nothing else.

She looks at him close, tries to amend the poor lighting with the intensity of her focus. She can make out deep, red cracks in his bottom lip. They're glaring and unnatural, like he's tried to chew it through. It is the single, blunt flaw on his beautiful, porcelain face.

The medic inside her is instinctive, fingertips reaching to coat that full bottom lip. But then she remembers she doesn't have chakra. It might be the first time she actually forgot it, since the sealing. Her hands move back before they make contact.

"I know," she says calmly, tries to take a breath because she thinks his presence might be getting to her again.

Sasuke shifts a little closer. "Are you going to kill me?" He asks, not sounding surprised or afraid at all. Maybe a bit tired, though.

"No," Sakura says. "I couldn't if I tried. We both know that." It's almost funny how she still wishes he could say the same.

He grunts, but offers nothing else.

Sakura eases her head back until her unruly hair is sticking against the soft, cushioned wall. "Can't believe we're in this place," she says. "The people in here are so nuts. They're making me go crazy." She pushes her weapons aside, rubs her arms fastidiously, partially because she's cold, but mostly because she thinks her hands will sprint off without her body if she doesn't occupy them. "I know that probably sounds silly, especially with me sneaking in here and ranting to you about it. I mean, you're _actually_ insane."

He's quiet, and maybe she should be scared for insulting him. But what does that matter now? The Uchiha pride has been desecrated and Team 7 is gone. She is too.

"You should leave," Sasuke says. He sounds calm, and Sakura takes that as a good sign.

"I don't know how I got into this mess, Sasuke," she says, continuing as if he hadn't said a thing at all. "The world is so strange and I think it caught up to me. And this place— _gods_ — **this place** is _horrible._ You'd think this institution is run by a lot of sadists. Everyone's angry or drugged out of their minds and there is _kids_ here. Why are there kids here? I mean you—"

"Sakura."

"—have a guy jerking himself off in the corner and there's just kids pacing around right next to him, like it's just another winter afternoon. It's completely _fucked_. And my roommate is driving me _crazy._ I'm pretty sure she—"

"Sakura," Sasuke says again.

"—has trichotillomania, which is when you pull out your hair out, but _habitually_. It's an anxiety thing. Which I guess isn't that weird, I mean we **are** _here_ , after all. But it's just that when I was doing my psych rotation, we mostly had patients that—"

"Sakura, you need to go," Sasuke says. "You're not being smart about this. If they find you, they'll keep y–"

"I know that!" Sakura snaps then, hissing. "I'm a medic! I know!"

He doesn't look shook, the way anyone _except_ him probably would be. But he doesn't say anything either, just relaxes his shoulders in quiet acquiescence.

Sakura sits back, nervously runs a hand through her hair, and holds herself tight. She doesn't know why she came here. Why she just opened her mouth and went off like this. _I'm fucked up._ Sakura thinks. _How did I get so fucked up?_

Probably by not listening to the others—probably by being so combatant and stubborn. _Needing help doesn't have an age limit, Sakura-chan._

"I miss Naruto." Sakura whines, sounding miserable. "And Ino, and Sai, and Kakashi-sensei and Tsunade-shishou."

Sasuke doesn't say anything at first, just inclines his head slightly. She rubs her palms on her knees, then her elbows.

"Naruto says you don't show when he visits," Sasuke says.

"I know," Sakura says, curling her head into her knees and feeling small. "I couldn't face him. Sai either. But I still miss them."

"…"

"I don't know how you left for so long," Sakura says. "It's only been a few days and I miss everyone so much. I feel like I'm going to die."

Sasuke almost looks sad at that. But it's hard to tell without being able to see his eyes.

"I've been missing tousan for years. Now I even miss kaasan too." Sakura says, "She was such a bitch, but I miss her." Sakura bites her lip then, can't help but feel a bit colder. "I shouldn't say that. She wasn't a bitch, she was just…I don't know."

"I'm sorry," Sasuke says.

Sakura scowls. She isn't sure what reaction she is looking for, but knows it isn't that. The words have quickly become an overused phrase between them—a knot in her throat that only a blade can dig out.

"Gee, thanks," she says. "Is that all you can say?"

His expression is befuddled, nose wrinkled and lips turned down. "Sakura," Sasuke says then, and starts inching closer. His stern jaw is set with a strange sort of weakness to it, dark hair falling to tickle his sharp nose, his jaw. "I _am,_ " he breathes.

The words come out raw and gentle. Too gentle. And he's close. Too close.

There is a magnetism in that moment, dragging her towards a forgotten, primitive urge to press against him— to tug at his dark, wild locks until his mouth is smooth against hers. She's feeling antsy, impulsive, and suddenly she's gliding her hand around his collar, fingers curling to cradle his warm nape.

She feels him shudder as she sifts through the hair there. It's a complete and utter lie to pretend the reaction isn't a beauty she's dreamt of for a very, very long time. But she tries.

Maybe he knows, because those scabrous lips look like they are moving closer, stopping just before he can slant them against hers. Sakura looks to the ridge of his aristocratic nose, then to the seal over his eyes. She imagines what they must look like under, what he could possibly be thinking, how would he react if she said to hell with his chagrin and yanked him to her lips. But she can't know because his eyes are covered.

They're not going to talk about it, but she remembers the most recent nightmare of him hovering over her. She remembers the whirlpool of his agony, the wet kneading of his hand on her gown. The vicious _want_. The cycling grief.

Sakura bets he wants to awaken his Sharingan again. She bets he wants to be violent and needy and fucking _stupid_ —just like she feels right now.

Her fingers fist in his hair. Maybe she wants to kiss him, but she wants to rip his absurdly pretty head off too. She could do it right now, if only she had her chakra. But she doesn't. Now she knows why Sasuke asked if she was going to kill him.

Sasuke doesn't move, just breathes. He's exhaling puffs along the bump of her nose, the crease of her lips. Soft. Warm.

The anger melts into a repentant ache, a nostalgic yearning. Sakura wonders why she has tortured herself by coming here.

Sakura unwinds her palm from his neck and turns her head away, stares at the white, padded wall across from them. Somehow, she can sense his disappointment when he pulls back to sit up straight again.

They're quiet, and it almost feels like the moment before is nothing but another one of Sakura's sleepless dreams. To Sakura's surprise, it's Sasuke who speaks first after, "They miss you too."

She doesn't turn her head though. It's best not to look at him too much. "Did Naruto say something?" she asks.

"No," Sasuke says, pauses, "but he didn't need to."

Sakura frowns at that. "How much has he been telling you about me?" Sakura asks then. "How do you even know where I live? And why do you _care?_ " The last part is a slip of tongue and Sakura is surprised by it. She doesn't mean to be so terse with him, but maybe she kind of does.

Sasuke's mouth is making strange little quivers, the permanent frown on his face gaining depth. "Sakura," he begins, voice deep and soft and nauseatingly apologetic. "I…I fucked up," he says, dejectedly. Sakura stares at the bob of his throat as he swallows. "I know I fucked up."

"Stop," Sakura says then. "Nevermind. I'm sor-"

"No," Sasuke's voice is firmer this time, and he's hunching over her again. She fights the urge to shrink back. "Nobody talks about it. I know Kakashi and the dobe must think I can't handle it—that it's just best forgotten, but they're wrong," Sasuke says. "I _want_ to. There's no excuse for me to run from it anymore."

Sakura flinches. He's wrong. It was never about protecting him. It's _their_ hands that are stained.

"Sakura, I wasn't myself…I…I _hurt_ you," Sasuke sounds so pained at that and Sakura's trying to fight the terrible throes inside her chest. "I put you in here."

 _No, you didn't._ It was okaasan. The pills are proof.

"And Naruto, he... I'm just so s—"

"Shut up!" Sakura says, the words shooting out like a knee-jerk, and she flinches. Still, somehow, she's more startled by her outbursts than Sasuke. She speaks, trying to amend her voice to sound more gentle but it just comes out crestfallen, "I just—" She forces an exhale. "I really hate it when you say that."

Sakura can see the slightest twitch of his mouth before he asks, "Why?"

"Because you shouldn't be," Sakura says, "Konoha let you down."

"But you didn't."

Those words do something—make the skin of her face tight and the air a little harder to breathe.

"Didn't I?" Sakura asks.

Sasuke is shaking his head. "Sakura, no, you're…"

There's a space—an infinite pause—and suddenly Sasuke looks horrible. Mouth twisted, body tight, Sakura sees the tremble of him, feels the heat radiating through the white trying to contain it. Then he's speaking again, sounding terribly anguished. "I would never rape you—"

He might as well have shot his hand through her chest again.

"—You need to know that. I would never."

"Stop," Sakura says, the world phasing in and out with each unsteady breath. "Please. Just shut up."

"I wouldn't. Even then, I wouldn't," Sasuke continues, urgently, like this message is absolutely imperative—something to be engraved onto the Uchiha headstones. "I would never, _never_ h– "

"This was a mistake," Sakura says, gathers her weapons in her arms haphazardly. "I need to go."

"Don't," Sasuke chokes, words coming out too fast and far too miserable. "Wait, just—you're right, I'm sorry, I'll shut up. Let's talk about Naruto again. Just stay. I'm so–"

Sakura shuts the door behind her. She shakes on a breath, wipes her cheeks, and sneaks back to her room.

* * *

 **A/N:** So…a few more things. Firstly, gonna need us all to practice that wonderful skill that fairytales gave name to and Kishimoto's manga rided on: Suspension of disbelief. I know how unreasonable it is for Sakura to have broke into Sasuke's cell without her chakra. And I know I was suspiciously vague about it. Let's just say the night shift is understaffed and overworked (which is more of an exaggeration than a lie in any government institution tbh.) But yeah, just get the eye rolls and "really bitch? REALLy?" out of your system and play along for me kthnx

Second, I am a very intentional writer, and I really do my best trying to give life to the settings and people I include in my work. However, I have not been in a psychiatric ward myself. This is all depictions I've gotten from articles, personal stories from loved ones, and my mother, who had formerly worked in one. So if you've had experience and feel this is a gross misrepresentation, I encourage you to PM me and call my ass out so I can fix any and all mistakes I've made. (The only exception to this is the degree of violence of the patients and the grouping of minor patients with adult ones. That was intentional and tailored towards Konoha's situation.)

Lastly, I want you all to know that this is the last draft in the queue. I haven't stopped writing the fic itself, and I'm enthusiastically determined to see it through, but the wait might be longer. As always, thank you for reading and supporting me, and let me know your thoughts! I know I've been shitty lately with responding to the comments, but I DO read them and I honestly love every single one. The support means so much and I'm really grateful to have readers like you ❤❤❤


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